In the Vanguard

In the Vanguard: Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, 1950–1969 traces this unique school’s impact on American art during the mid-twentieth century. Accompanying a landmark exhibition, this catalogue documents Haystack’s innovative pedagogy and its role as a major force in the studio craft movement. Anni Albers, Robert Arneson, Dale Chihuly, Arline Fisch, Jack Lenor Larsen, Harvey Littleton, and Toshiko Takaezu are among the artists who helped define the school’s model of communally oriented, process-based learning. With deeply researched essays that detail the school’s founding and first two decades, archival photographs, and images of rarely or never-before published works made at Haystack, In the Vanguard introduces readers to the important legacy of this groundbreaking institution.

Published in association with the Portland Museum of Art.

Exhibition dates:
Portland Museum of Art, Maine: May 24–September 8, 2019
Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan: December 13, 2019–March 8, 2020

Diana Jocelyn Greenwold is the Associate Curator of American Art at the Portland Museum of Art and holds a PhD in the history of art from the University of California, Berkeley.
 
M. Rachael Arauz holds a PhD in art history from the University of Pennsylvania and has worked as an independent curator of modern and American art since 2002. 

Acknowledgments
M. RACHAEL ARAUZ AND DIANA JOCELYN GREENWOLD

Director’s Foreword
MARK H. C. BESSIRE

Introduction:
The Generosity of an Idea
PAUL SACARIDIZ

Prologue: Mary Beasom Bishop and
Francis and Priscilla Merritt in Flint,
1946–51
STEFFI IBIS DUARTE

The Best Ideals of Socially Useful Living:
Haystack, 1950–60
M. RACHAEL ARAUZ

Inscriptions in History:
Haystack, 1961–69
DIANA JOCELYN GREENWOLD

Plates

Chronology
M. RACHAEL ARAUZ AND DIANA JOCELYN GREENWOLD
WITH SHEA SPILLER

Haystack Instructors, 1951–69

Checklist

Sources and Notes

Index

Lender List

Photography Credits