Arts and Crafts Fair in Hanover, August 1-5
COINCIDING with the Upper Valley's bicentennial celebrations, the League of New Hampshire Arts and Crafts has scheduled its 28th annual Craftsman's Fair for Dartmouth's Alumni Gymnasium during August 1 to 5. The first organization in the United States to foster handcrafts on a non-profit, state-sponsored basis, the League will provide a program which is both traditional and contemporary.
On view will be products by more than 2,000 league members, ranging from small gift items of quality workmanship to major home furnishings. The latter include furniture of painstaking and faithful reproduction and also of original design.
The five-day Craftsman's Fair was last held in Hanover in 1941 when the late Dean Robert C. Strong '24 was League president. So fervent was his faith in the League and its future, so tireless his efforts in its behalf, that the Hanover Arts and Crafts Shop on Lebanon Street has been named the Robert C. Strong Memorial Crafts Building. Appropriately, Mrs. Strong has been named official hostess for the 1961 Craftsman's Fair.
Colorful and varied as the fair will be with displays of rugs, textiles, metalwork, sculpture, ceramics, and complete room settings, it will take on additional flavor with its demonstrations. Craftsmen at the looms and forges, at their potters' wheels and rug frames, will stage continuous demonstrations. Also included will be illustrated lectures by craftsmen of national and international repute, appearing under sponsorship of the guilds of potters, jewelers, and weavers.
The New Hampshire Art Association, sister organization to the League, will have its annual show in connection with the fair.
The League was organized in 1931 through the interest of the late Governor John G. Winant in a village craft group in Sandwich, N. H. The governor saw in the success of the Sandwich Home Industries an idea of potential benefit to the entire state. A commission was established, the legislature voted a modest appropriation, and state-sponsored handcrafts began.
Today, craftsmen set their own prices and receive all profits, less only a commission returned to the League for marketing costs. The League's sales volume reached an all-time high of $188,500 in 1960.
