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Forest Craft Guild (page 1) -- Forest Emerson Mann was born in 1879, and attended the Pratt Institute in New York, where he was a student of Arthur Wesley Dow. After graduating, Mann taught Arts & Crafts classes in Dayton, Ohio, and founded the Miami Pottery, named for the clay from the nearby Miami River. Dayton was also the home of George Frost and the Frost Workshop, which produced similar copper and brass items.
By 1902 Mann was running a small jewelry studio he called the Sherman Shop in Grand Rapids, where he produced handmade, relatively expensive pieces in small quantities. In 1905 he started the Forest Craft Guild, partly to create objects that were somewhat less refined and more affordable than his previous items. The work of the Forest Craft Guild is under-appreciated today, and Forest Mann remains relatively obscure outside the Arts & Crafts community. It is regrettable that talented craftspeople like Mann and the Kalo Shop's Clara Welles -- and even masters such as Oakes, Shaw, and Hale -- are not better known and admired.
Forest Mann, shown in rare Forest Craft Guild copper picture frame
with repoussé squares and green bezel-set cabochons at the corners
In a 1913 catalog promoting the Guild's New York City showroom, reprinted in Don Marek's excellent Grand Rapids Art Metalwork (the best source of information about Mann and the Guild) Mann wrote:
"The Guild has demonstrated that good design and practical constructive skill may be combined with efficient management to the extent of producing objects of real worth and artistic merit at a minimum cost… A frequent criticism often made relative to individual craftworkers is that they demand for this work a price which is prohibitive and altogether out of proportion with the value of the object. This has placed many desirable wares beyond the reach of many who would most desire to possess them. It has remained, however, for the Forest Craft Guild to solve the problem in a practical way. With its corps of designers and skilled craftsmen the Guild has been able to conceive and execute in its own shops a wonderful variety of artistic and practical articles, the character if which is now well known and eagerly sought for by the more discriminating public….
"The productions of the Guild may be found in the better class of art shops, book and stationery stores and craft shops in every city. These displays include gold and silver jewelry combined with semi-precious stones -- rings -- brooches and pendants, bracelets and watch fobs, all executed from original designs. The ooze leather bags, with special designs in hand-wrought metal ornaments of dull brass, old copper and silver in jeweled effects is an original conception of the Guild workers…. Brass, copper and silver are used extensively in the making of photograph frames, smoking sets, lamp shades, desk furnishings, book racks and numerous other articles for the home."
Forest Craft Guild pieces were often acid-etched and overtly hand-hammered. They frequently carried an applied verdigris (or what the Guild called "antique green") patina. While objects reflected common Arts and Crafts motifs, the Guild's designs were often highly experimental and quirky, going beyond that of other similar but more sedate firms such as Frost, Carence Crafters, and the Marshall Field Craft Shops. It is thought that Forest Craft Guild workers produced metalwork for the nearby Stickley Brothers shop and vice versa.
German silver brooch on original ooze leather backing in original green presentation box
In addition to relying on semiprecious stones such as moonstones, abalone, coral, amethyst, various kinds of pearls, opals, topaz, amber, and glass, the Guild used Venetian enamel, "an iridescent enamel of blue and green tints," which became a trademark of sorts. The most common metals for jewelry were brass, copper, and German silver (an alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc also known as nickel silver). Pins were mounted on squares of soft "ooze leather" (vegetable-tanned suede -- the name comes from the manufacturing process of mechanically forcing "ooze" -- or the tanning liquor -- through raw leather, creating a velvety feel) in simple green or cream-colored presentation boxes decorated with a woodcut-like silhouette of a dark forest (see above and below).
Brass stickpin on original ooze leather backing in original cream-colored presentation box
Many of the firm's pieces were unmarked. A few carry the FOREST / CRAFT / GUILD stamp. Some are stamped GERMAN SILVER, and a very few contain both marks. Silver pieces are marked STERLING or STERLING SILVER. We see lots of good unmarked Arts & Craft hammered jewelry, and it is sometimes difficult to ascribe these to their proper makers. Forest Craft items have a distinctive look and feel. Few other makers could produce the reptilian-looking pin below. They commonly used themes such as Dutch girls, sailboats, scarabs, windmills, and small geometric arrays of repousse squares or circles. Ooze leather (suede) handbags with twisted silk cords and riveted metal sides, often with cutouts, were also a trademark FCG item. While Mann himself produced a small line of finer jewelry, most Forest Craft Guild objects seem a bit rough in execution. But this is part of the charm.
Perhaps because of this rough quality, many Arts & Crafts dealers snub Forest Craft items, or consider them to be clearly second- or third-tier. While Forest Craft Guild pieces will never be in the same rarefied circle as those from Hale, Shaw, Oakes, Rogers, or even Kalo's better work, they are lovely and especially interesting because of their offbeat, somewhat rustic and light-hearted qualities.
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Typical FOREST CRAFT GUILD mark:
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Typical GERMAN SILVER mark:
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Typical combined mark:
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