TheCranbrook Academy of Art, agraduate school forarchitecture,art, anddesign, was founded byGeorge Gough Booth andEllen Scripps Booth in 1932. It is theart school of theCranbrook Educational Community. Located inBloomfield Hills, Michigan, Cranbrook grantsMFA orMArch degrees to students who have completed a two-year course ingraphic design,industrial design,interactive design,architecture,ceramic art,fiber art,metalsmithing,painting,photography,print media, orsculpture.[1] Described as an experiment in radical art education, each department is led by anartist-in-residence, who acts as mentor, advisor, and professor to the students in that department.[2] Cranbrook is closely tied to theArts and Crafts movement in America.[3]
In the 1920s, the Booths began developing a group of public institutions inBloomfield Hills, Michigan. These would eventually make up theCranbrook Educational Community.[4] In the spring of 1925, George Booth shared his idea of an arts academy with Finnish architectEliel Saarinen, who was teaching Booth's son, Henry Booth, at the nearbyUniversity of Michigan School of Architecture inAnn Arbor. 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.[3] There was a strong domestic component to the 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 Saarinen involved his entire family as well. His wifeLoja Saarinen would lead the Weaving and Fiber Department, and their two children,Eero Saarinen andPipsan Saarinen, grew up and would go on to study at the academy.[3]
In a series of letters during 1925, Booth and Saarinen planned a multi-tiered educational community comprising a church, a primary school, secondary schools for boys and girls, and an art academy.[3]
The school was first headed by Saarinen, who integrated design practices and theories from theArts and Crafts movement through theinternational style.[5]
By 1931, artists and craftsmen were already living at Cranbrook, some of them having moved across the world to be there. Finnish architectEliel 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.[2] After the 1930s,modernism eclipsed the Arts and Crafts movement, but the Academy adhered to its Arts and Crafts roots.[citation needed]
Beginning in 1983, a major exhibition of works by Cranbrook's faculty and graduates,Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision 1925–1950, toured major museums in the United States and Europe.[6] TheDetroit Institute of Arts andMetropolitan Museum of Art co-authored a book detailing the works in the exhibit.[7]
In 1984,The New York Times wrote that "the effect of Cranbrook and its graduates and faculty on the physical environment of this country has been profound ... Cranbrook, surely more than any other institution, has a right to think of itself as synonymous with contemporary American design."[8]
From 1971 to 1995, the Design department was co-chaired byMichael McCoy andKatherine McCoy (who were married).[9]
The Cranbrook Academy of Art is a graduate-only school oriented around a professional, studio practice.[10] The school continues to be known for itsapprenticeship method of teaching, in which a small group of students—usually 10 to 16 per class, or 150 students in total for the 10 departments—study under a singleartist-in-residence for the duration of their curriculum. There are no traditional courses; all learning is self-directed under the guidance and supervision of the respective artist-in-residence.[5] Cranbrook is the only surviving experiment in radical art education, having outlastedthe Bauhaus andBlack Mountain College.[10]
The entire campus of theCranbrook Educational Community was designed byEliel Saarinen in the style of the Arts and Crafts movement.[11] Every wooden door on campus is unique, an example ofGesamtkunstwerk (total design).[12] Director of the Cranbrook Art Museum,Andrew Blauvelt, described the school as the "most designed environment you will ever encounter in the United States".[12]
Notable artists, architects, and designers who have studied at Cranbrook Academy of Art includeAdela Akers,[13]Olga de Amaral,[14]McArthur Binion,[15]Peter Bohlin,[15]Nick Cave,[16]Niels Diffrient,[15]Charles and Ray Eames,[15]Edward Fella,[15]Gere Kavanaugh,[15]Florence Knoll,[15]Marjorie Kreilick,[17]Jack Lenor Larsen,[15]Donald Lipski,[15]Fumihiko Maki,[18]Myra Mimlitsch-Gray,[15]Annabeth Rosen,[15]Ruth Adler Schnee,[15]Nancy Skolos,[15]Toshiko Takaezu,[15]Lucille Tenazas,[15]Harry Bertoia[19] andAnne Wilson.[15]