By Ellen Gilbert 

"A good life is found only where the creative spirit abounds, where people are free to experiment and create new ideas for themselves." - Aileen Osborn Webb

Referred to as “MAD,” the Museum of Arts and Design is anything but disordered or wildly foolish, nor does it have anything to do with the eponymous magazine. This MAD was founded in 1956 by arts and design champion Aileen Osborn Webb (1892-1979), and from now through February 28, 2015 it is celebrating her achievements in an exhibit, What Would Mrs. Webb Do? A Founder’s Vision.

“Aileen Osborn Webb was one of the great visionaries of the twentieth century,” observes Glenn Adamson MAD's Nanette L. Laitman Director. “Her progressive conception of how the world around us can be made more humanely, more responsibly, has never been more relevant. With this project, we want to remind people of this amazing woman’s many achievements, and show how the Museum today is carrying her mission forward.”

IN THE GENES

“Art patronage was in Aileen’s genes,” writes Craft in America contributor Emily Aiden. Webb was born in Garrison, New York to a family that had investments in mining, railroads and real estate. Her father, William Church Osborn, was a prominent supporter of medicine, culture and the arts. An early force in developing the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he served as president of the board of trustees from 1941 to 1948, and bequeathed most of his private collection to the museum.

Webb’s mother’s side of the family, the Dodges, amassed their own fortune through mid-19th century metal importing. They were already known for their philanthropy when Aileen married Vanderbilt Webb in 1912. “Van,” as she called him, was a lawyer and heir to the Vanderbilt shipping and railroad fortune—yet another family of philanthropists. Their main residence was on Park Avenue in Manhattan, and, fittingly, Webb counted Eleanor Roosevelt among her good friends.

Webb put her sizable wealth to good use. During the Depression she worked to alleviate poverty by creating a network for men and women to sell handmade goods. In 1940, long before the word “artisanal” became popular, she founded America House, a Madison Avenue storefront that exhibited and sold handmade goods. Years later Director Harold Brennan would recall America House as “a clinical laboratory, providing a testing ground of the most rigorous sort for design, technical handling, and price.”

One satisfying experience in making handmade goods widely available led to another. In 1943, Webb helped to create the American Craft Council. The ACA, as it is known, still exists, celebrating American artists working in a wide variety of media. The World Crafts Council followed in 1964. Before that, in 1944, Webb helped establish the School for American Crafts (SAC), now located at the Rochester Institute of Technology. SAC was particularly instrumental in training returning servicemen on the G.I. Bill for new jobs. Again and again over the years, Webb showed a special talent for the pragmatic, educating the public about crafts, and working with craftspeople to help them recognize what would be marketable.

“She never looked back, and was always interested in what could be done next to improve what she was involved with,” recalled Paul J. Smith, Director Emeritus of the American Craft Museum in an interview several years ago. “It was just a positive energy that she brought to looking at the craft field with a broad perspective. All of the programs she initiated had a profound effect.” Despite her own great wealth, “she wasn’t a collector as such,” Smith noted. She “enjoyed possessing and living with handmade works.”

"THE THING OF THE SPIRIT"

“It is the things of the spirit, the arts of the country, which have always led mankind forward, and it is to this spirit that the craftsmen of the world must lend themselves,” Webb observed in 1964. Some years earlier she had overseen the opening of MAD, which was then known as the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. “It took many years for craft art to be accepted in the U.S. as a legitimate art form that would earn the respect of museums, galleries, collectors, universities, and the general public,” notes a recent article by NYCitywoman.com founder Barbara Lovenheim.

Organized by adjunct curator Jeannine Falino and curatorial assistant Barbara Gifford, the new exhibit includes over 100 works in glass, ceramics, wood, metalwork, and fiber, nearly all from the MAD’s permanent collection. Craftspeople whose work appears in the show, include Annie Albers (textiles); Sam Maloof and Joris Laarman (furniture); Jack Lenor Larsen and Lia Cook (textiles); Peter Voulkos and Jun Kaneko (ceramics); Harvey Littleton and Judith Schaechter (glass); and John Prip and Myra Mimlitsch-Gray (metal). The exhibit also recognizes the contributions of Nanette L. Laitman and the Windgate Foundation, two current key supporters of skilled makers.

What Would Mrs. Webb Do? also taps into the landmark exhibition Objects: USA, which opened in 1969 at the Smithsonian Institution. Featuring highlights of the Johnson Collection of Contemporary Crafts, it eventually traveled to over twenty other museums around the world. On display were a ceramic mini-couch and chair by Richard Shawin, a three-dimensional wall hanging by Dominic Di Mare, and works by more than 250 other craftsmen that asked the question: is craft art? Writer Bella Neyman reports that when America House closed in 1971, “American crafts were no longer an anomaly, and the desire for them had never been stronger. Mission accomplished.”

SAVE THE DATES

Several special events are being held at MAD in conjunction with What Would Mrs. Do? On Thursday, October 16, at 7PM, three directors of non-profit art centers, Alanna Heiss of Clocktower, Patricia Jones of Eyebeam, and Creative Time’s Anne Pasternak will take a look at not-for-profit organizations of the past, and consider how they are currently adapting to new “urgencies and resources.” This program is free of charge.

On Thursday, November 13, at 6:30PM MAD will offer a guided tour focusing on the people behind the works on view in the exhibition, and how Aileen Osborn Webb influenced them. This program is free with Pay-What- You-Wish Admission.

The Museum of Art and Design is located at 2 Columbus Circle in New York City. It is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10AM to 6PM Thursday and Friday from 10AM to 9PM, and closed on Mondays and major holidays. For more information write to info@madmuseum.org or call 212.299.7777.

A seven-minute YouTube video makes effective use of words and images to tell Aileen Osborn Webb’s story. The video on YouTube is titled: “Aileen Osborn Webb: 2012 RIT Innovation Hall of Fame.”

An unpublished memoir by Aileen Osborn as well as an oral history interview conducted with her in the spring of 1970, are held by the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institute, the world’s largest and most widely used resource dedicated to collecting and preserving the papers and primary records of the visual arts in America. For more information visit www.aaa.si.edu.