ART CRAFTS SHOP
The Art Crafts Shop formed around 1902 in Buffalo, New York, by Bernard Carpenter and Otto Heintz. The company only produced enameled items for a few years before moving on to silver overlay and changing the name to the Heintz Art Metal Shop. Obviously influenced by the European design journals of the time, the shop's work is one of the few true American Art Nouveau metal examples from the period.
Art Crafts Shop items display one of two enameling techniques: One is simply laid right onto the copper (easily damaged); the other technique is when the copper item has actually been hand-worked or cast, leaving the enamel sitting slightly “down” in the metal – these forms are rarer and more desirable since the enamel is usually more intact.
