Stephen Gray To Receive A&C Lifetime Achievement Award

Author, publisher and dedicated collector Stephen Gray has been named the most recent recipient of the Arts & Crafts Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be presented to him at the 24th national Arts & Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC on February 19th.

To be considered for this award, nominees must have demonstrated at least 25 years of their involvement in the Arts & Crafts movement and their dedication to the education of new Arts & Crafts collectors, through public speaking, publication of research, involvement in the annual national Arts & Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn, and participation in museum exhibitions.

In 1979 Stephen Gray, founder of Turn of the Century Editions, published the first of several furniture catalogs originally distributed by Gustav Stickley, the Roycrofters, L. & J.G. Stickley, Charles Limbert, Stickley Brothers and others. These reproduction catalogs have continued to provide collectors with information critical to recognizing and identifying signed and unsigned furniture from the major Arts & Crafts furniture makers.

In addition, Mr. Gray has shared his extensive knowledge of Arts & Crafts furniture, art pottery and metalware through other publications, serving as a contributor to influential books, an advisor to noted authors and as a consultant to major Arts & Crafts collectors and collections.

He has generously loaned items from his collection to such landmark exhibitions as "The Art That Is Life" (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1987), "Arthur Wesley Dow" (American Federation of Arts, 1999) and "Teco: Art Pottery of the Prairie School" (Erie Art Museum, 1989).

In 2008 the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art hosted "At Home with Gustav Stickley: Arts & Crafts From the Stephen Gray Collection," an exhibition built around his extensive collection of early Gustav Stickley furniture, Arts & Crafts metalware and American art pottery. A catalog by the same title accompanied the exhibition.

The Arts & Crafts Lifetime Achievement Award is sponsored by the non-profit Arts & Crafts Research Fund. Previous recipients are Robert Winter, Rosalie Berberian and Kitty Turgeon. The award includes an engraved hammered copper tray commissioned from Michael Adams and Dawn Hopkins of Aurora Studios and presented at the national Grove Park Inn Arts & Crafts Conference.