Gustav Stickley

LaMont A. Warner
Thence by descent
Christie's New York, June 8, 2000, lot 13

Jerome and Cynthia Rubin, Mission Furniture, San Francisco, 1980, pp. 7 and 32
Stephen Gray and Robert Edwards, eds., Collected Works of Gustav Stickley, New York, 1981, pp. 21, 37, 62 and 121
Coy L. Ludwig, The Arts & Crafts Movement in New York State, 1890s-1920s, Hamilton, NY, 1983, p. 60
Stephen Gray, The Early Work of Gustav Stickley, New York, 1987, p. 91
A. Patricia Bartinique, Gustav Stickley, His Craft: A Daily Vision and a Dream, Parsippany, NJ, 1992, pp. 70-71 (for the 1901 patent and design drawing of this model)
From Private Collections in Detroit, Detroit, 1993, p. 39
Barbara Mayer, In the Arts & Crafts Style, San Francisco, 1992, p. 53
Peter Barnet and MaryAnn Wilkinson, Decorative Arts 1900: Highlights David M. Cathers, Furniture of the American Arts and Crafts Movement, Philmont, NY, 1996, pp. 140-141
David Cathers and Alexander Vertikoff, Stickley Style: Arts and Crafts Homes in the Craftsman Tradition, New York, 1999, pp. 21 and 129
David Cathers, Gustav Stickley, New York, 2003, pp. 78-79, 122 and 174 (for period photographs showing the model in Stickley's 1903 Arts and Crafts exhibition in Rochester and in the Craftsman Building)
Karen Livingstone and Linda Parry, eds., International Arts and Crafts, London, 2005, pp. 155 and 157

Until recently, little was known about a member of Stickley’s firm identified by the intials L.A.W.  However, a major discovery by Stickley scholar David M. Cathers has uncovered important facts about the life and career of this illustrious designer.  LaMont Warner joined Gustav Stickley's firm in 1900, where he worked for six years as a designer and head draftsman.  After his departure in 1906, Warner embarked on a lengthy career of teaching and painting before retiring in 1964.  Upon his death in 1970, Warner left behind sixteen pieces of Craftsman furniture that he had kept from his days of working for Stickley.  Included in this important group of furniture was the ''Morris'' chair presently offered.  Period photographs taken of Warner's living room around 1909 show this iconic chair next to other exceptional examples of Craftsman furniture.  These photographs first appeared in an article published in House Beautiful in 1909 by Louise Shrimpton (fellow member of Stickley's firm) featuring Warner's new home built in Bronxville, New York.  Interestingly, Shrimpton attributes the designs for all of the Craftsman furniture illustrated in her article to Warner.  However, when Gustav Stickley patented the chair body of the flat-arm ''Morris'' chair in September 1901, Stickley named himself as the designer. 

In the mid-1930s, Warner moved back to his family homestead in Stamford, New York, where he lived the remainder of his life with his daughter, Victorine Warner Knox, and her husband, Allan Knox.  He brought most of his Stickley furniture with him, along with his design archives, and converted an upstairs room to an artist studio, where he devoted much of his time to drawing and painting.  A print executed by Warner of his studio interior shows this ''Morris'' chair, as well as an ''Eastwood'' stool and a two-door bookcase.

Another example of this iconic flat-arm ''Morris" chair is presently featured in the Victoria and Albert exhibition, International Arts and Crafts.