Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony

Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony honors the centennial of Byrdcliffe, the colony founded as a center for artists and craftsmen in Woodstock, New York in 1902–1903. The colony was started by Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead, a wealthy British disciple of John Ruskin and William Morris, who was determined to make his mentors’ utopian vision of an arts and crafts colony a reality.

The furniture, textiles, metalwork, ceramics, paintings and photographs made by the artists of Byrdcliffe are examined within the context of the creative Woodstock community. The examination is completed through the architecture, literature, poetry and folk music created by those that lived or visited the colony.

Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony is organized by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell University and coordinated by Glenn Adamson, MAM adjunct curator and curator of the Chipstone Foundation.