Cranbrook Academy of Art

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The Cranbrook Academy of Art is the art school of the Cranbrook Educational Community, which was founded by George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth. Located near Detroit, Michigan, the school grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students who have completed a two-year course in 2D Design, 3D Design, 4D Design, Architecture, Ceramics, Fibers, Metals, Painting, Photography, Print Media, or Sculpture. Described as an "educational experiment," each department is led by an Artist-in-Residence, a practicing artist who acts as mentor, advisor, and professor to the students in that department. Cranbrook is closely tied to the Arts and Crafts Movement in America.

History

In the 1920s, the Booths began developing a group of public institutions in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This collection of institutions would eventually make up the Cranbrook Educational Community. In the spring of 1925, George Booth shared his idea of an arts academy with Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, who was teaching Booth's son, Henry Booth, at the nearby University of Michigan School of Architecture in Ann Arbor. George Booth envisioned a school dedicated to the English Arts and Crafts Movement, where artists and craftsmen would teach students through the example of their own work. There was a strong domestic component to the Arts and Crafts Movement; hand-crafted design should be part of daily life and work. Cranbrook was to be a place where artists both worked and lived. The entire Booth family lived at Cranbrook, and Eliel Saarinen involved his entire family as well. His wife, Loja Saarinen would lead the Weaving and Fiber Department, and their two children, Eero Saarinen and Pipsan Saarinen, grew up and would go on to study at the academy.

In a series of letters during 1925, Booth and Saarinen planned a multi-tiered educational community comprised of a church, a primary school, secondary schools for boys and girls, and an art academy.

By 1931, artists and craftsmen were already in residence at Cranbrook, often having moved across the world to join the academy. Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen was the chairman of the Art Council. Carl Milles left the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm to lead Cranbrook's Sculpture Department. After the 1930's, Modernism eclipsed the Arts and Crafts Movement, but the Academy adhered to its Arts and Crafts roots.

Educational Structure

The Cranbrook Academy of Art is a graduate-only school oriented around a professional, studio practice. There are no classes, instead students pursue individual creative work in their studios under the guidance of artists-in-residence. Cranbrook is the only surviving experiment in radical art education, having outlasted the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College.

Architecture of the Campus

The entire campus of the Cranbrook Educational Community was designed by Eliel Saarinen in the style of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Every wooden door on campus is unique, an example of gesamtkunstwerk or total design. Director of the Cranbrook Art Museum, Andrew Blauvelt, described the school as the "most designed environment you will ever encounter in the United States."

Notable Alumni

A list of notable artists, architects, and designers who have studied at Cranbrook Academy of Art includes Adela Akers, Olga de Amaral, McArthur Binion, Peter Bohlin, Nick Cave, Niels Diffrient, Charles and Ray Eames, Edward Fella, Gere Kavanaugh, Florence Knoll, Jack Lenor Larsen, Donald Lipski, Fumihiko Maki, Myra Mimlitsch-Gray, Annabeth Rosen, Ruth Adler Schnee, Nancy Skolos, Toshiko Takaezu, Lucille Tenazas, and Anne Wilson.

References

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