Rago and Toomey & Co. are honored to present a two-part auction showcasing the impressive breadth of Richard Blacher's historic collection of American Arts & Crafts material from the Roycroft community southeast of Buffalo in East Aurora, New York. This unprecedented offering reflects the passion and dedication that The Roycrofters applied to their craft. Highlights include signature works by the eccentric yet enterprising Roycroft founder Elbert Hubbard, rare, handmade publications by master bookbinder Louis Herman Kinder, and books, metalwork, and jewelry from multitalented Roycroft artisan Dard Hunter.
A devotee and scholar of the Arts & Crafts Movement for over fifty years, Richard Blacher assembled one of the most significant collections in the country of important printed material from The Roycrofters. While the Roycroft name would also later become associated with furniture, metalwork, lighting, decorative arts, jewelry, and accessories, the community's primary focus at the outset was bookmaking and printing.
Illinois native Elbert Hubbard was a successful salesman for the Larkin Soap Company in Buffalo before founding the Roycroft community in East Aurora. An 1894 trip to England proved highly influential for Hubbard. He had already tried his hand at fiction writing, with limited success, before conceiving of a series of biographical sketches entitled Little Journeys, in which he planned to profile a range of historical and artistic figures. While in London, Hubbard called upon Kelmscott House, the home and studio of English Arts & Crafts artist, designer, and publisher William Morris. Although Morris was known for furniture and textile design, he was more interested in fine bookmaking in his later years when Hubbard paid him a visit. Upon returning to America, this experience had a profound effect on Hubbard, such that he printed the first of his Little Journeys as a booklet in December 1894 and established the Roycroft Press and community soon thereafter.
“Rather, now that we have passed the centenary of the first Roycroft books, Hubbard deserves to be granted his rightful position as one of only a handful of Americans who pioneered in reviving the art of fine bookmaking, as one who sponsored some of the pre-eminent illustrators and book designers this country has yet produced, and as the man who did more than any other domestic publisher of his generation to give the average citizen a new appreciation for the book as an art object.”
Elbert Hubbard combined various ideological strains in The Roycrofters. He was sympathetic to socialist theories and yet he was steeped in consumer capitalism by his former trade as a salesman. The classic Roycroft “cross over orb” (God over Earth) mark suggests a Christian framework, but the community was decidedly New Age for its time and unconventional in its egalitarian empowerment of workers. Thus, Hubbard started the Roycroft community as an unpretentious salon of sorts, modeled on Morris' Kelmscott House, with an emphasis on creating fine, handcrafted books. In retrospect, the Roycroft bookmakers and bookbinders proved to be some of the most skilled and artful practitioners in the history of American graphic design, during the Arts & Crafts period or any other.
The Collection of Richard Blacher features an expansive selection of books by major authors, such as William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Omar Khayyam, Alfred Tennyson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and many others. These are all generally fine examples, with some being truly rare and exceptional. Along with an Author's Edition of The Complete Writings of Elbert Hubbard, the auction boasts what many have deemed the rarest of all Roycroft books: An Appreciation of Thomas W. Lawson with Roycroft presentation box from the Citizens of Albert Lea.
In 1905, Thomas Lawson spoke with William Jennings Bryan in Albert Lea, Minnesota to rail against the excesses of Standard Oil Company. To thank Lawson for his courageous denunciation, the citizens of Albert Lea commissioned The Roycrofters to produce a letter of appreciation that was designed, hand-calligraphed, and hand-illumined by Dard Hunter, inset with three monoprints of landscapes by artist Alexis Fournier, and with a binding designed and executed by Louis Kinder. Further elevating this one-of-a-kind, leather-bound book is a hand-carved walnut Roycroft presentation box bearing a stylized rendering of Lawson's initials (TWL) within a decorative seal on its cover.
Another similarly striking example is Elbert Hubbard's Contemplations with Roycroft presentation box. This anthology of essays, brief sermons, epigrams, and sayings by Hubbard boasts an elaborate, photogravure frontispiece on paper. The book cover features hand-modeled leather with the title, foliage, and acorns all vividly arranged and executed. Similar to the work commissioned for Lawson, Contemplations is accompanied by a hand-carved box, made of mahogany in this case, and it is signed by the woodcarver, N.L. Godsor, which represents the only such known box with a signature.
Many of the finest Roycroft books were bound by Louis Kinder, including the remarkable Lawson work noted above. One of the two copies of Robert Browning's The Last Ride in the auction represents another amazing example of Kinder's artistry. Boasting a cover with a rich color palette, along with a mix of geometric and natural motifs, the back is signed by Kinder. The vellum pages are hand-illumined by Frances Carmody and three letters from Elbert Hubbard to the original owner are included with the original presentation box.
The Blacher Collection also has several handmade copies of Henry David Thoreau's Friendship, with bindings designed and executed by Louis Kinder or Frederick Kranz, another highly accomplished Roycroft bookbinder.
“There are no skilled people in the Roycroft Shop, except those who have become skilled since they came here, with a very few exceptions. Among these is Mr. Louis H. Kinder, master bookbinder, who spent seven years’ apprenticeship in Leipsic learning his trade. Competent Bibliophiles assure me that Mr. Kinder's work is not surpassed by that of any other bookbinder in America.”
After the turn of the 20th century, the Arts & Crafts Movement saw a marked increased in popularity. Gustav Stickley's magazine The Craftsman helped expand the demand for furniture and decor that fit within the aesthetic of “The Craftsman Home.” Stickley himself and his four younger brothers all subsequently ramped up production to supply the market. While there were Roycroft artisans fashioning items apart from handmade books in the early years of the community, those activities were not in the spotlight. This began to change from 1901 onward, with furniture, metalwork, lighting, and other wares taking on more priority for The Roycrofters. After all, Elbert Hubbard was a shrewd businessman who did not want to miss an opportunity to capitalize on the surge of interest in Arts & Crafts design. One downside to this shift in philosophy was that the meticulous craftmanship within the Roycroft bookmaking division gradually declined as resources were redirected.
Nevertheless, The Roycrofters did design some very impressive works in the years that followed and The Collection of Richard Blacher features several of note. Particular examples to admire include: an Important bookcase, model 084 variant from the Collection of Elbert Hubbard; a Piano bench, model 071; a pair of Rare Old Willow Stump bookends in patinated and handwrought copper with repoussé by Victor Toothaker; a Large and Rare copper tray with repoussé poppies; a Table lamp, model 905, with a shade designed by Dard Hunter and a base attributed to Victor Toothaker; a Gem-set brooch in silver with a cabochon jade by Dard Hunter; an Egyptian vase in copper by Karl Kipp; and a Rare adjustable reading stand in copper. While Roycroft production work continued into the 1920s, the earlier, handmade examples tend to be of the highest quality.
Roycroft was the name given to a reformist community of crafters and artisans founded by Elbert Hubbard (pictured) in East Aurora, New York in 1894. The Roycrofters, as members of the community were called, consisted of some of the most skilled bookbinders, furniture makers and metal workers of the American Arts & Crafts Movement, including Karl Kipp, Frederick Kranz and William Wallace Denslow.
Elbert Hubbard was a successful salesman and part owner of Buffalo, NY-based Larkin Soap Company. Although the company had made him quite wealthy, Hubbard eventually lost interest in the soap industry, sold his share in the company and retired to East Aurora.
A man of many interests, Hubbard became infatuated with the polymathic ideals of the British Arts & Crafts movement and traveled to England to meet the pioneer of the movement, William Morris. Rebelling against the dehumanizing effects of the industrial age, Arts & Crafts designers like Morris championed handcraftsmanship and the integration of the arts in a decorative environment. Hubbard was so inspired by his visit that upon his return to East Aurora he founded a private printing shop to publish a magazine he dubbed The Philistine, which extolled the virtues of Arts & Crafts ideals. The Philistine became wildly popular, leading to the establishment of a nearby book bindery. A leather shop, metalsmith and furniture shop soon followed, each one bringing still more artisans and their families into the folds of the growing Roycroft community.
The exceptional quality and craftsmanship presented in Roycroft designs, coupled with Elbert Hubbard’s acute business savvy, made the community one of the most successful and influential enterprises of the American Arts & Crafts movement. Hubbard advertised Roycroft handicrafts in several publications and magazines and personally wrote all of the advertising copy, which emphasized the Roycroft philosophy as much as the quality and affordability of its products.
Roycrofters produced a broad array of goods, from leather bound books and woodblock prints to metalwork lamps and substantial wooden furniture. While widely varied in form, function and presentation, all Roycroft products adhered strictly to the predominant aesthetics of Arts & Crafts design, featuring rigorously simple but sophisticated construction and stylized ornamentation inspired by medieval, romantic and folk traditions.
The Roycroft community continued to produce fine handicrafts of growing popularity until the untimely death of Hubbard and his wife, suffragist Alice Moore Hubbard, in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915. Control of the company passed to their son, Bert Hubbard, who sought to expand the distribution of Roycroft goods through major retailers. Despite these efforts, the company fell into a gradual but steady decline. Unable to weather the one-two punch of waning public interest and the Great Depression, the company shut down production for good in 1938.
Today, furniture and decorative objects made by Roycroft can be found in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Elbert Hubbard Roycroft Museum in East Aurora.
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