Cranbrook history

The 1909 English Arts and Crafts-style house was designed by Kahn for the Booths’ use.

George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth in the old rose garden at Cranbrook House, ca.1915.

They began this vision with construction of the Greek Theatre, built in 1916.

In 1922, the Booths linked with a few local parents to organize a school for neighborhood children at the Meeting House.

In 1925, George Booth began to work with architect Eliel Saarinen, thinking up ideas for other educational institutions on Cranbrook’s campus.

As George Booth stated at the dedication of Cranbrook School for Boys in 1927:

The first assignment Saarinen tackled was building Cranbrook School, which was completed in 1928.

Ellen Scripps Booth opened the Kingswood School for Girls in September 1931.

Now, a blockbuster show — “With Eyes Opened: Cranbrook Academy of Art Since 1932,” running from June 18 to September 19 — is taking over the whole of the affiliated Cranbrook Museum of Art, telling the story of the school in more than 270 objects.

The Cranbrook Institute of Science, opened in 1933, holds a collection of specimens related to natural history and science.

Oh’s Savage chair, with its a wild, bulbous shape made from found objects covered in jute, is a far cry from the restraint of the prototype for Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen’s 1940 Organic Design side chair, on display nearby.

Charles Eames is behind the camera, 1941.

Although it is akin to other early-20th-century experiments in modernism, like the Bauhaus in Germany and Black Mountain College in North Carolina, Cranbrook — which started offering Master of Fine Arts degrees in 1942 — is the sole survivor of these utopian schools.

Bertoia set off for California in 1943 and worked with designers Charles and Ray Eames, whom he had met at Cranbrook.

Rather, having gifted most of the major works of art in the house to the Cranbrook Academy of Art (and most of the upstairs furnishings and personal items to the family), they deeded the home, its remaining contents and surrounding property to the Cranbrook Foundation in 1944.

Unhappy with that arrangement, he moved on to join Knoll Associates in New York City in 1950.

In 1966, as the trustees deliberated demolishing the house and subdividing the property, former Foundation executive director Henry Scripps Booth - the youngest son of George and Ellen Booth - moved his office into the west wing of the house.

For years, the schools were governed as separate bodies; however, in 1970, an agreement was made to create a single board to govern the three schools—Brookside, Kingswood and Cranbrook.

In 1971, Henry Scripps Booth and a small group of concerned individuals, organized what would later become the Cranbrook House & Gardens Auxiliary with intentions to preserve, maintain and share the Booth’s historic manor home and forty acre estate.

McArthur Binion, the first Black artist to receive his Master of Fine Arts degree in painting at Cranbrook, will be represented here by an abstract work in melted crayon on aluminum panel from his 1973 degree show.

The present organization of Cranbrook Schools, begun in October 1984 and completed the following autumn, included the merging of Cranbrook and Kingswood upper grades to create Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School, a co-educational school, on two campuses.