Arts Crafts FURNITURE and
John Andrews
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INTRODUCTION
he Arts and Crafts Movement has a history rich in paradox. It was dominated by architects who admired buildings not designed by architects. For inspiration they preferred the vernacular tradition – barns, cottages, stables – to the discipline of formal design.They used locally hewn materials – timber, stone, clay tiles, flint, thatch – whilst submitting to town brick. They cherished asymmetry, wanting to give the impression that houses had grown over many years.They designed from the inside out, imposing their view of life on the spaces and furnishing of the interior. Though perfectionists, they studied the rustic structural traditions of cartwrights, wheelwrights and bodgers. Dedicated socialists in their principles and fervent beliefs, they included suites of rooms for servants in their houses.They provided workers with better homes and eveningclass institutional culture whilst employing their cabinet-makers at eightpence halfpenny an hour. (Skilled female embroiderers could earn from four to ten pence an hour in the 1880s). Although Philip Webb only drew a modest income for himself, many of the key figures had private means and were comfortably off by modern standards. Few of them succeeded commercially.The garden city developments they approved for better living in emulation of rural villages, but without pubs, needed strong modern industries to sustain them. The Arts and Crafts Movement on both sides of the Atlantic produced glorious silver, metalwork, ceramics, textiles, lighting, wallpaper, stained glass, jewellery and printed matter. It may seem perverse to concentrate on its furniture.Yet it is in its furniture that paradox is most evident, the effect of principle most revealed. In its distaste for the output of mass production, with its clutter of ‘clever’ decoration concealing the structure beneath, the British Movement veered off towards the example of ‘honest’ medieval-style construction, with pegged mortise joints and through dovetails to show how a piece was made. Plain surfaces, local materials and rush seating were extolled. For some reason, perhaps rooted in religion, the heart shape and the flat capped upright met with their approval but so did the tulip. There was a worthy desire to bring good simple furniture into the homes of everyone. Unfortunately, the painstaking preservation of traditional rural skills made their output too expensive for ordinary working people. Fine cabinet work, inlaid and decorated pieces rendered much of the British Movement suppliers to the better-off, professional classes and landowners who believed they needed support. In America, where the machine was no enemy and social perceptions were different, the Movement had a much wider impact. The desire of Ruskin and Morris to improve the working life of craftspeople and to make their work more rewarding than the drudgery of mass production practices was a laudable objective. It met an enthusiastic response in America.What were many of the Movement’s most controversial social beliefs are now accepted as normal respect for fellow humans. Modern thinking about work’s rewards approves Morris’s beliefs entirely. Much of the drudgery has been passed on to countries in the developing world. The conflict between the desire to give a craftsman rewarding control of his work by concentrating on skilled hand crafts, and the availability of sophisticated machinery was better
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Opposite: Plate 1. Inlaid mahogany music cabinet designed by Baillie Scott and made by J.P.White c.1901. Also illustrated (COURTESY: H. BLAIRMAN & SONS) in line drawing in the J.P.White/Baillie Scott catalogue of 1901.
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2. The Build-up – G.E. Street
Plate 29. Rather spare planked desk by Street, showing the style with prominent hinges with flared ends subsequently favoured by Arts and Crafts practitioners. (COURTESY: H. BLAIRMAN & SONS)
Opposite: Plate 28. Oak side chair, missing its cane seat, made by Gillows to a design by G.E. Street for the Law Courts, Strand, London. c.1882. A design drawing for this chair may be found in the Gillow sketches for their cost books, dated 13 October 1882. (COURTESY: H. BLAIRMAN & SONS)
Right: Plate 30. Gothic Oak Revival chair designed by G.E. Street for the Royal Courts of Justice, London, c.1880.These chairs can be seen in an engraving of the bar room at the Royal Courts (COURTESY: PAUL REEVES) of Justice in the Illustrated London News, 6 January, 1883.
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2. The Build-up – William Morris & Co.
Plate 46. Oak dining table by Philip Webb for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. Circular tables with legs and stretchers with ring turning to give a rather ‘bamboo’ effect were executed in many variations, of which this is a more complex and perhaps slightly overstructured example. (COURTESY: H. BLAIRMAN & SONS)
Plate 47. Similar circular table to Plate 46. by Philip Webb for Morris & Co. but with simpler leg and stretcher construction. Perhaps intended as a centre table. (COURTESY: H. BLAIRMAN & SONS)
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2. The Build-up – William Morris & Co.
Plate 48. Oak sideboard designed by Philip Webb for Morris & Co.The low flattened arch is typical of this range of sideboards of various sizes stemming from Webb after he took over the firm’s furniture. This design was praised (COURTESY: H. BLAIRMAN & SONS) for its straightforward approach at the time.
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2. The Build-up – William Morris & Co.
Madox Brown, and of which a variant was designed by Rossetti, to satinwood 18th-century reproduction wardrobes in the 1890s. The firm’s running costs were high due to the means of production it adopted and so it was often in financial straits. It was sold in 1905 and had to become even more commercial in order to survive. It is ironic that Morris had started the firm unwilling to reconcile art with contemporary industry and hating commercialism. His was an individual approach to creative work yet he became concerned with the broader elements of society and the environment of the country, lecturing on art and democracy in a campaign for social justice. From hating machinery and all it stood for he came to realise that it should be controlled in order to improve existence by taking the dreary repetitive elements out of everyday work. Thus liberated, men would be free to pursue a better quality of life.
Plate 56. Inlaid wall mirror by George Jack for Morris & Co.The chequered inner decoration is to be seen on many (COURTESY: H. BLAIRMAN & SONS) Arts and Crafts pieces. Opposite: Plate 57. Work or patience table with fretted Isnik arches of Liberty design registered 1889.There is a folding top and turned legs. Attributed to Leonard Wyburd. Shown next to a Morris & Co. silkwork firescreen showing a winged cherub on a dolphin.The silkwork designed by Walter Crane and executed under the supervision of May Morris at (COURTESY: THE COUNTRY SEAT) Merton c.1885.
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2. The Build-up – Christopher Dresser (1834-1904)
– had pieces either designed or approved by Dresser. He was briefly editor of the Furniture Gazette in 1880.The Alliance failed in 1883, perhaps benefiting Liberty in acquisition of stock. Dresser worked on ceramics, metalwork, glass, carpets, silver, furniture, wallpaper and other textiles. Whilst everything else is well documented, his furniture is scarce. Jeremy Cooper explains this by saying that because Dresser was not an architect, he had no affiliations with particular architects or builders. His contacts were direct with industry. For this he established his design office, employing some ten assistants and moving from London to Barnes in 1889. He was thus more like a 20th-century studio designer than his contemporaries. He absorbed Japanese, Greek, Egyptian and Gothic influences whilst remaining very original and his work is highly prized. He was design director for the Minton and Linthorpe potteries. In the 1890s he was back in Glasgow designing glass for James Couper and Sons. Dresser is not usually considered to be a mainstream Arts and Crafts figure but his influence on design development was important, as was his relationship with Owen Jones, for whose book The Grammar of Ornament he produced plates. He was a powerful proselytiser, energetic and prolific – he had thirteen children as well, although five of them died in infancy – but he died, relatively obscure, in France.
Plate 68. This rather severe Coalbrookdale ‘Water Plant’ pattern cast-iron seat 74 inches (188cm) wide was designed by Christopher Dresser and is stamped Coalbrookdale 206162 No 45. It was registered and patented in 1867 and was catalogued as No. 45 in the Coalbrookdale 1875 catalogue. Both William Lethaby and Christopher (COURTESY: SOTHEBYS BILLINGSHURST) Dresser designed for Coalbrookdale. Opposite: Plate 69. Bookcase made by Pratt & Prince of Bradford, possibly designed by Christopher Dresser c.1874. Fumed and ebonised oak and bog oak, inlaid with exotic woods and faux ivory. Pratt & Prince are known to have sought commissions from architects (see étagère possibly for Arthur Simpson under Commercial Companies) and Dresser worked in Halifax, designing for several manufacturers in the area.The design elements are characteristic of him. (COURTESY: PAUL REEVES)
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2. The Build-up – Christopher Dresser (1834-1904)
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3. The Movement Arrives – The Guild of Handicraft
Plates 87 and 87A. Painted cabinet by C.R. Ashbee made by the Guild of Handicraft, shown both open and closed.The shape is based on a traditional eighteenth century form but the silvered metal lock plates, hinges and handles are similar to those on other forms of cabinet and desk designed c.1898 by Ashbee.There is a strong contrast between the dark outside surface and the light holly of the interior – on other, similar Ashbee designs the exterior is mahogany or rosewood. The finishing and inlaying are of high craftsmanship, although the interior arrangement of handles and floral inlays tend to interfere with each other. (COURTESY: H. BLAIRMAN & SONS)
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3. The Movement Arrives – W.A.S. Benson
Plate 139. W.A.S. Benson was nothing if not a designer of metal and this table shows his prediliction for copper (COURTESY: H. BLAIRMAN & SONS) used in conjunction with a cast pierced base. Opposite: Plate 140. Walnut secretaire cabinet inlaid with box and ebony designed by W.A.S. Benson, c.1900, with silvered metal handles and key. Clearly inspired by 18th-century examples and part of a range of Morris & Co. furniture (COURTESY: H. BLAIRMAN & SONS) that catered for the demand for Georgian Revival furniture in modified form.
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3. The Movement Arrives – W.A.S. Benson
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3. The Movement Arrives – Ambrose Heal
Plate 165. Oak ‘Letchworth’ dining table with column legs on sleigh stretcher. c.1904. Heal furnished a cottage (COURTESY: THE MILLINERY WORKS AND JEFFERSON SMITH) at the new garden city in 1905. Opposite: Plate 164. Eleven-legged high back upholstered easy chair inlaid with chequered pewter and ebony diamond motifs to the side panels. Designed by Ambrose Heal as part of a bedroom suite that won two silver medals at the 1900 (COURTESY: THE MILLINERY WORKS AND JEFFERSON SMITH) Paris Exhibition.
In later years Heal said that just as he was running into problems with demand for work from his own workshops, in 1902 Ashbee moved the Guild of Handicraft out to Chipping Camden. Some craftsmen who did not want to leave London were absorbed by Heal and formed a nucleus for his furniture venture in the Tottenham Court Road. By this time Heal was becoming recognised as the up-and-coming man in British furniture design. His economic and simple style struck a chord with the new garden city developers as in Letchworth, where he furnished a cottage in 1905. To emphasise his commitment to the principles of Morris he called the two of the ranges of furniture ‘Kelmscott’ and ‘Lechlade’ and they were made in oak, cherry, walnut or chestnut. This ‘cottage’ furniture in very plain design was much praised and emulated – Percy A. Wells, head of cabinet work at Shoreditch Technical Institute produced
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3. The Movement Arrives – Liberty’s
Plate 224. Liberty & Co. mahogany settee with spindle decoration, the upper section having a central copper panel depicting a galleon in full sail by John Pearson, signed ‘J.P.95’.This is flanked by two bull-nosed leaded glass panels. The covering is the original Liberty’s velvet print (probably Silver Studios.) John Pearson was an original member of Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft and was its first metalwork instructor. Gillian Naylor states that he was something of an enigma and ‘may have worked for William de Morgan as a potter before he joined the Guild.’ (COURTESY: LIBERTY’S)
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3. The Movement Arrives – Liberty’s
Plate 225. A Liberty & Co. umbrella stand with green tile back and inset with a large copper panel with tulip forms. (COURTESY: WOOLLEY & WALLIS) There is a Moorish influence in the arched front.
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Opposite: Plate 307. Mahogany card table attributed to G.M. Ellwood for J.S. Henry, c.1900.The top inlaid with stylised tree, flower and leaf motifs in pewter, mother-of-pearl and various woods.The inside surface is baized. (COURTESY: THE MILLINERY WORKS AND JEFFERSON SMITH)
Plate 308. Walnut 5-drawer music cabinet attributed to G.M. Ellwood and probably made by J.S. Henry, c.1895.With flatcapped uprights, cut-out flower motifs and square feet repeating the square caps of the uprights. (COURTESY: THE MILLINERY WORKS AND JEFFERSON SMITH)
4. America – Frank Lloyd Wright
Plate 342. Pair of oak chairs by Frank Lloyd Wright, c.1908, for the Avery Coonley House, Riverside, Illinois. The verticality of the design is achieved by a long rectangular slab back supported at a gentle angle against the cresting rail and back stretcher, resulting in a rather plank-like presentation within Spartan framing. Opposite: Plate 341. Oak side chair designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, c.1916-22, for the Imperial Hotel,Tokyo.
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ISBN: 978-1-85149-731-7
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