Brought to Book by Crafts Study Centre

Brought to Book Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Crafts Study Centre 21 August 2018 to 10 August 2019

B rought

B ook

Contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................... 5 2. Robin Tanner .................................................................................. 6 3. Jane Weir ......................................................................................... 7 4. Christopher Farr Cloth .................................................................... 9 5. Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie .......................................................... 10 6. Alan Peters .................................................................................... 11 7. Ralph Beyer .................................................................................. 13 8. Edmund de Waal ............................................................................ 14 9. Thomas Ingmire ............................................................................ 15 10. Edward Wates .............................................................................. 16 11. Rita Beales .................................................................................. 17 12. Ethel Mairet ................................................................................ 18 13. Bernard Leach ............................................................................. 19 14. David Pye .................................................................................... 22 15. Susan Bosence ............................................................................. 23 16. William and Eve Simmonds .......................................................... 25 17. Alison Britton .............................................................................. 25 18. Emmanuel Cooper ...................................................................... 26 19. Barron and Larcher ...................................................................... 28 20. Acknowledgements ...................................................................... 29

BROUGHT TO BOOK

1. Introduction

HIS EXHIBITION draws together work from across the range of the Crafts Study Centre collections, and investigates the way that

particular collections relate to a book of some description. The book may be a formal record of a craft process; or a scholarly analysis of the makerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work set into an art or social context; or a pedagogical manual; or a listing of samples; or a volume of poetry; or an artwork in its own right. In each case the maker, researcher or curator has taken very particular care to record specific objects in the collection or to use the collection as a basis for creative work. The outcome of the research reveals private thoughts and technical solutions, as well as creative struggles. Research and creative writing and making are then placed into the public domain, often after long periods of study.

BROUGHT TO BOOK

2. Robin Tanner

HE TEACHER AND ETCHER Robin Tanner describes in his autobiography Double Harness how ‘a group of friends – craftsmen

and educationists – met from time to time in the late 1960s, to discuss the possibility of founding not a museum of objects untouchable behind glass but a living, expanding Study Centre where work could be held in the hand and enjoyed, and a whole archive consulted’. The Crafts Study Centre realised this ambition, and its founding documents, one could argue, are two volumes of textile samples by Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher. Tanner catalogued these samples, creating a formal record of their work and an account of the materials used in their pioneering cloth designs. The books are therefore both analytical and symbolic. Tanner’s books are a record of friendship and respect, as well as a documentary account for textile researchers and scholars. Phyllis Barron (1890 –1964) and Dorothy Larcher (1884 –1957): A record of their block-printed textiles, Volume 1, compiled by Robin Tanner One of two books collated and bound by Robin Tanner for the Crafts Study Centre collection. Tanner records sample lengths by the hand-block printers Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher. The books are therefore assemblages of their practice for future researchers; but they are also art objects in their own right, with Tanner’s meticulous italic descriptions; and the books may be regarded symbolically, as the foundational documents of the history of the Crafts Study Centre itself. 2001.1.b ‘Aldhelmsburgh’ etching 2015.10

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

Gordon Russell Workshops: Hall Chest Chestnut, circa 1931. Made by the Gordon Russell Workshops, Broadway. The coffer was commissioned by Cecil Crouch and presented to Robin and Heather Tanner as a wedding present. Robin Tanner wrote to Crouch that the chest was ‘ a much nicer one than Heal’s. in chestnut, very modern and plain, for not much more’. 2015.3

3. Jane Weir

ANE WEIR is a widely published poet. She is Anglo-Italian, grew up in Salford, and lived in Belfast before moving back to England. She

now lives with her family in the Peak District in Derbyshire. Walking the Block and Spine, published by Templar Books, are poetic representations of the creative partnership of Barron and Larcher and their lives together, set alongside many of the textiles from the Crafts Study Centre collections. Her poems also consider the creative environments in which they worked. Weir says that ‘while I was writing Walking the Block I came to realise that a sequel was inevitable. Spine wades deeper, sinks further into their lives, work and practices; the stories of the development of the makers, dyers and handblock printers, Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher’. Video recording A short video recording of the poet Jane Weir reading her poetry and a commentary on Walking the Block.Video kindly provided by Templar Poetry. Two volumes of poetry published by Templar Books The poems are creative responses to the hand-block prints of Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher, researched by the poet in the collection of the Crafts Study Centre and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester. Crafts Study Centre Library

BROUGHT TO BOOK

Phyllis Barron & Dorothy Larcher – ‘Print Thinking’ An Autobiography on Cloth – not Paper by Jane Weir

ALKING THE BLOCK and SPINE explore the life, work and creative practices – or what I call ‘print thinking’ – of hand block

printers’ and designers Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher. I think of their prints as an ‘autobiography on cloth’ – rather than paper. As a poet and designer I am exploring the two womens’ lives in pattern, recognising the connections between forms, such as rhythm and rhyme, concentrated lyrics, refrains, the links between surface print and repeat pattern and cadences found in language – specifically poetry. Part of their ‘print thinking’ was the technique Phyllis and Dorothy developed of ‘overprinting’. A length of cloth they felt wasn’t quite right would be overprinted, often with ‘found’ objects such as pastry cutters, seeds, a rubber car mat – they literally ‘resuscitated’ their designs and by doing so created wonderful complex scores with loops, swaggers and repeats of conversations, set amidst a symphony of subtle tonal hues and textual vigour. I am also exploring the nature of their creativity. I wonder how their life experiences impact upon their creative subconscious, how this impacts on Phyllis and Dorothy’s ‘print thinking’, both shared and as individuals – through a pattern, or a dye sequence and how much play has an impact on their print narratives or abstracts. What strikes me is the breaks, skips, stutters, and the time delays when you physically walk a block across a length of cloth. Phyllis and Dorothy aren’t fixated on ideas of perfection – something that is key to them both as makers, and to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

philosophy. Slubs, faults, echoes and misalignments are part and parcel of their ‘printed stuffs’ and contribute to the life of their lengths, constancy of their dyestuffs. The poet and novelist Thomas Hardy spoke about the ‘bumpiness’ of the line‘s length and the broken rhythms that aid ‘authenticity’, infuse a sense of life being lived within language – or in this case within their cloth – this is what I sensed intuitively on encountering Phyllis and Dorothy’s stuffs. This is what shapes my writing about their work. Credits: Jane Weir, Pliny and Templar Media © Copyright Templar Media & Jane Weir, 2018

4. Christopher Farr Cloth

HE NEWLY PUBLISHED book Barron and Larcher is edited by Michal Silver and Sarah Burns and published by Christopher Farr

Cloth for ACC Art Books Ltd. The Crafts Study Centre collection of the handblock printers Barron and Larcher was widely consulted for the publication. Christopher Farr has a long experience in collaborating with contemporary designers and artists, as well as producing archival collections ‘with a view to bringing them back to life and introducing them to new audiences’. The collection of Barron and Larcher lengths presents them for a contemporary audience, and the Christopher Farr lengths are displayed alongside the Centre’s original examples. Textile length ‘Skate’ in indigo From the current Barron and Larcher range. Textile length supplied by Christopher Farr Cloth

BROUGHT TO BOOK

Wallpaper using the Barron and Larcher design ‘Belge’ in the colour sky Christopher Farr Cloth, London began to produce a range of cloths and wallpapers in 2017 using original materials in the Barron and Larcher collections at the Crafts Study Centre. The cover of this catalogue reproduces ‘Belge’ in the colour sky.

5. Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie

LEYDELL-BOUVERIE, known as ‘Beano’ to her friends, studied pottery at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. In 1923 she saw

an exhibition of Bernard Leach’s work in London and applied to join the Leach Pottery, St Ives, where she was a paying pupil. She set up a pottery on her parents’ estate at Coleshill, and in 1928 Norah Braden joined her. They worked together until 1936, developing a series of wood and vegetable ash glazes. She recorded the make-up of these glazes with meticulous care in a series of notebooks, and Bernard Leach referred to her work on ‘the effects of different Wood-ashes on Glazes’ in his manual A Potter’s Book. She also marked her pots to indicate the materials in the glaze. For example, a vase of 1937 has the following inscriptions: ‘VII’ for the garden burnt box ash glaze; ‘MOI’ for Manganese of Iron. Six notebooks Pleydell-Bouverie recorded in these notebooks from the 1920s in exacting and scientific detail the clay and glaze recipes for her ceramics. KPB/1–6 Vase, stoneware, scotch pine glaze, 1950s P.74.203 Small bowl, stoneware, poplar ash glaze, 1930s P.74.178

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

Vase, stoneware, box ash glaze, 1930s P.74.177 Vase, stoneware, spruce ash glaze, 1930s P.74.170 Vase, stoneware, box ash glaze, 1930s P.74.144 Bowl, stoneware, box ash glaze, 1930s P.74.185 Bowl Stoneware, with ash glaze, 1970s. P.75.30 Bowl Stoneware, with pine ash glaze, 1950s. P.75.31

6. Alan Peters

LAN PETERS was born in Petersfield and at the age of 16 went to the Froxfield workshops of Edward Barnsley as an apprentice.

He spent seven formative years there, then moving on to do a teacher training course, followed by the study of interior design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts. In 1962 he set up his own business designing and making furniture in Grayshott, Surrey, and then moving to a workshop in Cullompton, Devon in 1973. He was active in the crafts field, becoming Vice Chair of the Devon Guild of Craftsmen, and he was a Trustee of the Crafts Study Centre from 1988â&#x20AC;&#x201C;99. He made an influential trip to Japan on a Crafts Council bursary, and his aesthetic was influenced by that trip.

BROUGHT TO BOOK

His book Cabinetmaking: the professional approach is a lucid account of the challenges for aspiring furniture designers and it contains a rich resource of images of his own designs. The Crafts Study Centre acquired his archive in 2011, along with his Romanian-inspired chest. Romanian-inspired chest, English oak, c. 1999 The chest was made for the celebrated ‘One Tree’ project where a number of makers were invited to produce work from an oak tree some 170 years old felled on the National Trust’s Tatton Park estate, Cheshire. Peters made a number of linen, blanket and clothes chests during his career, and these were often inspired by travel. In this case, he had been inspired by a trip to Romania in 1993, and the chest is notable for the entirely wooden hinge. The chest might be seen as the last major piece that Alan Peters made. 2011.11 Single side chair, ash and sycamore with leather cushion This chair is a ‘standard’ Peters design, and a variation of a chair commissioned for the Crafts Council in 1978. It is very similar to the chair illustrated in Cabinet Making: the professional approach. 2011.12 A selection of models and trials from the Alan Peters archive Along with correspondence relating to his book on cabinet making. The models include a chair, a consol table, a conference table and table top, as well as letter carving trials and number trials, and a wood block inlaid with blue circles. 2012.13.1 to 2012.13.12 A letter from Edward Barnsley to Alan Peters Congratulating Peters on the publication of his book Cabinet making, calling it ‘a first class introduction’. Peters had been an apprentice at the Barnsley workshops in Hampshire.

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

7. Ralph Beyer

HE CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE acquired an important archive of drawings and letter carvings in stone by Ralph Beyer through

the Heritage Lottery Fund’s Collecting Cultures programme, 2007–11. These materials reinforce the Centre’s internationally significant collection of lettering and calligraphy. Beyer was German-born, acquiring British citizenship after World War II. He developed a distinguished career as a letter-cutter, sculptor and teacher. He was best known for his major work The Tablets of the Word and other lettering for Basil Spence’s new Coventry Cathedral. The acclaimed letter-cutter John Neilson has researched the life and work of Beyer over the past ten years in preparation for a monograph to be published in 2020, the fiftieth anniversary year of the founding of the Crafts Study Centre. Three ‘proposed designs for mural panels’ Pencil on paper, 1959. These were three of the designs which Beyer presented as ‘first firm sketches’ to Sir Basil Spence, the architect of Coventry Cathedral. Spence, however, wanted the lettering to be larger, filling more of the space of each tablet, so Beyer’s final designs were very different. The eight ‘Tablets of the Word’ in the Cathedral nave were carved in 1961 and constitute his most significant work as a letter carver. Carved stone work ‘Shatter me Music’ with lines from a poem by R.M. Rilke 2009.25

BROUGHT TO BOOK

8. Edmund de Waal

DMUND DE WAAL (born 1964) is a potter and writer. His elegant and poetic installations of porcelain vessels have been shown

in major venues as diverse as Blackwell (the Arts and Crafts House in Cumbria) and the Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills. More recently, he has designed the stage sets for a new ballet by Wayne McGregor at the Royal Opera House. He was originally apprenticed to the potter Geoffrey Whiting, then set up his own studios, first in Herefordshire and later in Sheffield. In 1990 he spent two years in Japan on a Daiwa Anglo-Japanese scholarship and then set up a studio in Camberwell, London. His present studio is in West Norwood, London. De Waalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s books include a remarkable account of Bernard Leach (1997) and the award-winning The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010). The White Road (2015) is an account of his obsessive interest and engagement with porcelain. Two porcelain buckets, celadon glaze, 2002 Gift of Edmund de Waal 2008.25.1-2 China Earth II Five porcelain vessels in an aluminium, wood and plexiglass vitrine. Gift of Edmund de Waal 2016.47 Tall lidded jar, porcelain, celadon glaze, circa 2000 Gift of Edmund de Waal 2010.3.11.a-b

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

9. Thomas Ingmire

HOMAS INGMIRE was born in 1942 in Ft. Wayne, Indiana and studied landscape architecture at Ohio State University and the

University of California, Berkeley. He discovered calligraphy in the 1970s and joined the English master calligrapher’s one-year postgraduate course at California State University, Los Angeles. He was the first foreign elected Fellow of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators in 1980. Since 2002 he has concentrated on the making of artists’ books and collaborative projects; and he creates original books with poets such as Geraldine Monk and Christine Kennedy. He lives and works in San Francisco. Ingmire was commissioned by the Crafts Study Centre and the Edward Johnston Foundation in 2002 to make ‘illustrated diaries documenting my thoughts on calligraphy…I began the project with the idea that a sustained piece of writing would help me to make sense of what calligraphy means to me and what function it plays in my life after thirty years of practice’. ‘Calligraphy…some thoughts’ Nine booklets documenting the maker’s thoughts on calligraphy over eighteen months from December 2002. B9 hand-made paper from the Iowa University Center for the Book, Saunders mould-made paper, Chinese and Japanese sumi inks, and gold leaf on gesso. 2004.30.1–9

BROUGHT TO BOOK

10. Edward Wates

DWARD WATES studied at the London College of Printing after completing an English degree at the University of York. He was one

of the last generation to be trained in hot-metal typesetting. He worked in academic publishing from 1978 until 2018 – for the first 20 years as a book designer, and subsequently as Head of Journal Content Management for John Wiley. Wates training as a calligrapher began with evening classes in Oxford, and then with Ann Hechle and Sue Hufton under the Advanced Training scheme run by the Society of Scribes and Illuminators from 1989 to 1991. His book designs were regularly selected for the annual British Book Design and Production awards. His calligraphy has been exhibited internationally and is held in collections in Germany, Pakistan, New York and at the Crafts Study Centre. Wates’s calligraphic work is almost exclusively in the form of manuscript books, which he writes, illustrates and binds himself. He works repeatedly with a small number of texts and his main interest lies in the creation of a unified visual pattern combined with the tactile qualities of the finished object. ‘Nadezhda Mandelstam’s Last Letter to Osip Mandelstam’ 22pp manuscript book, written out in black Chinese ink using metal pens with hand-painted gouache illustrations, bound in millboard with a Khadi paper cover and orange Japanese endpapers, 200x115mm (closed), 200x230mm (open). Reproduced from Hope Abandoned by Nadezhda Mandelstam, translated by Max Hayward, contained in The Voronezh Notebooks: Osip Mandelstam Poems 1935 –37, published by Bloodaxe Books, 1996. Book loaned by Edward Wates

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

Manuscript book, with an extract from Basho’s ‘Narrow Road to the Deep North’, 2007–08 Written with a metal nib using Chinese stick ink on Zerkall paper, illustrations made in gouache using a pointed brush, bound by the scribe in Somerset card with a printed jacket and yellow Fabriano end papers. 2013.15

11. Rita Beales

ITA BEALES is regarded as one of the best linen hand-weavers in Britain in the twentieth century. Her renown was built on a life-

time’s work devoted to the hand-spinning, weaving and natural dyeing of flax and fleece. Robin Tanner, who was a personal friend, noted that ‘it is the extraordinary light, airy quality of the flax, its living buoyant nature, and the unique lustre of its texture that Rita Beales has pursued so creatively. Her sparing use of colour gives these few dyed threads a precious, rare character: each one is considered with care, even affection’. The Crafts Study Centre commissioned the flax and linen specialist Patricia Baines to write the monograph on Rita Beales’s work in 1989, linked to a defining exhibition of her work. It denotes the remarkable gift that Rita Beales made to the Centre of a substantial selection of her weaving. Two sample books, 1934 These linen-covered books document samples of cloth by Rita Beales, with the books made and written by Robin Tanner. 2009.2.1–2 Spinning wheel, Norwegian, circa 1929 Used by Rita Beales for spinning wool. Beales left the wheel to her friend, the weaver Anne Lander, who donated it to the Crafts Study Centre. 2004.46

BROUGHT TO BOOK

Hand-woven mat, hand-spun linen T.81.5 Hand-woven mat in hand-spun linen T.81.9 Hand-woven dress or furnishing length in hand-spun linen, 1970s T.81.41 Hand-woven length in hand-spun green linen T.81.34

12. Ethel Mairet

HRISTOPHER FRAYLING wrote in his foreword to the book by Margot Coatts, A Weaver’s Life: Ethel Mairet 1872–1952 (Crafts

Council in association with the Crafts Study Centre, 1983) that ‘the role of the Crafts Study Centre…is to encourage studies of the life and work of British artist-craftspeople in the twentieth century, and through the Centre’s rapidly expanding archive, collection, exhibition programme and library, to make available as wide a variety of materials as possible for such studies, so that makers, critics, researchers and enthusiasts can look for (and at) the roots of contemporary work in the crafts’. Margot Coatts’s biography is a notable example of this object- and archive-based research. It is a meticulous account of the work of Ethel Mairet, described by Shoji Hamada as ‘the mother of English handweaving’. The book confirms that Mairet’s writings, practice and influence as a teacher, and her international travels and contacts, helped her, as Frayling said ‘to found (or as she might have preferred it, to re-discover) the tradition of modern hand-weaving in England – a tradition that laid

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

special emphasis on texture and yarn as opposed to pattern’. Ethel Mairet herself was an important writer in her field, with technical and historical books such as Vegetable Dyes and Hand-Weaving Today. Two editions of Ethel Mairet’s ‘Vegetable Dyes’ Her influential, terse, instructional manuals. The earlier, and very well used, edition dates from 1924 and was in the library of Ella McLeod, sometime head of the textile department of the Farnham School of Art, the precursor to the University for the Creative Arts at Farnham. The two copies were then held in the library of Amelia Uden who taught textiles at Farnham, and was also a Trustee of the Crafts Study Centre. Crafts Study Centre Library Hard-backed order book by Ethel Mairet for the Gospels Workshop, Ditchling, 1940s 2002.21.26 Woven scarf, cotton and wool, 1930s TS.82.229 Hand-woven length of dress material, red cotton and undyed Cheviot wool, Ditchling, 1930s T.74.82.a Length of tartan in cotton and wool, Ditchling, 1940s T.74.27

13. Bernard Leach

EACH WAS BORN in Hong Kong in 1887, moved back to England in 1897 and studied art at the Slade School and the London School of

Art, where he was taught etching by Frank Brangwyn. He moved to Japan in 1909 to pursue a career as an artist, at first by teaching etching, but he switched to ceramics under the guidance of his tutor, Ogata Kenzan. His

BROUGHT TO BOOK

first solo exhibition was held in Japan in 1914. Leach returned to England in 1920 and, with the help of Shoji Hamada, set up the Leach Pottery in St Ives. Leach’s instructional work A Potter’s Book was highly influential, becoming something of a technical and lifestyle manual to generations of potters. He was a prolific writer and lecturer, his books often relaying the idea of a ‘standard’ espoused by the early ceramics of Japan, Korea and China, and the use of exemplary pots to illustrate this notion, which added to his understanding of the folk craft tradition. The Crafts Study Centre also published The Etchings of Bernard Leach, an account of his very early work as an etcher in Japan. Emmanuel Cooper’s definitive study, Bernard Leach Life & Work was written using the Centre’s world class Leach archive as the basis of study. Bowl Circa 1950, porcelain with Ying Ching glaze. Donated to the Crafts Study Centre by his friend, the writer and curator and founder Trustee of the Crafts Study Centre, Muriel Rose. Rose wrote an influential study Artist-Potters in England (Faber and Faber 1955). P.74.6 A Potter’s Book Leach’s most famous publication in an edition signed by Leach, Shoji Hamada and Soetsu Yanagi. Crafts Study Centre Library A Potter’s Work This edition has been signed by Bernard Leach as a gift to his friend, the eminent potter, Lucie Rie. Gift of Edmund de Waal Crafts Study Centre Library Artist unknown: Jar, 1600 –1800, Joseon Dynasty, Korea, stoneware with brush decoration From Bernard Leach’s personal collection P.79.46 20

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

‘Mountain scene in Japan’, soft ground etching, 1909 –20 An unpublished etching from a recently discovered steel etching plate. ‘Boat, Willow Tree and bush under cloud’, soft ground etching, 1909 –20 One of the etchings Leach made in Japan. 2010.22.49 ‘Self portrait’, soft ground etching, 1914 This version is from the second edition sanctioned by Janet Leach and Mary Redgrave and printed in the 1980s, selling through their shop New Craftsmen gallery in St Ives. ‘Portrait of my son David’ Soft ground etching, 1920. An example from the original edition of Leach’s etchings produced in Japan. LA.11405 ‘The Little Hills’, etching, 1908 –09 A rare original print, done when Leach was at art school on a trip to the area around Wareham, Dorset. A pencil inscription on the back of the original mount states that its selling price was 30 shillings. 2011.20 Vase, stoneware with decoration of stylised willow trees, 1970s P.75.94 Tall bottle, stoneware with brushed pairs of leaping fish, 1970s P.75.99 Bottle, stoneware with celadon glaze, 1920s A very early work from the founding years of the Leach Pottery, St Ives. P.75.34 Bottle Porcelain with clear glaze, Korean,Yi Dynasty, 18th century. From Bernard Leach’s personal collection. P.79.49

BROUGHT TO BOOK

Bowl Porcelain with celadon glaze, Ming Dynasty, China, 14th–15th century. From Bernard Leach’s personal collection. The bowl has been repaired with gold lacquer. P.79.20 Covered incense pot Porcelain, 1967. P.75.120 Bottle, stoneware, 1966 –67 P.75.101 Bottle, stoneware, 1966 –67 An image of this pot was used as one of a series of GPO stamps in the series ‘Studio Pottery’ issued in 1987. The other potters in the series were Elizabeth Fritsch, Lucie Rie and Hands Coper. Leach’s stamp was to the value of 18 pence. P.75.102

14. David Pye

AVID PYE was an original and influential wood-worker, designer, educator and writer. He was Professor of Furniture Design at the

Royal College of Art 1964–74. His books include The Nature of Design and The Nature and Art of Workmanship. Pye made wooden bowls and boxes and, as Abigail Frost puts it, ‘was among the few to write about the crafts in an unsentimental fashion’. In 1950 Pye built an inventive fluting engine to cut smooth rhythmic grooves on the inner surfaces of his bowls. This machine has recently been reassembled (in a private collection) on loan from the Crafts Study Centre. Frost said that the machine embodied Pye’s concerns as a maker and as a writer ‘to bring diversity to the object’. He famously described ‘the work-

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

manship of risk’, saying that ‘the essential idea is that the quality of the result is continually at risk during the process of making; and so I shall call this kind of workmanship ‘The workmanship of risk’: an uncouth phrase, but at least descriptive’.A major exhibition of Pye’s work and an associated publication was jointly arranged by the Crafts Study Centre and the Crafts Council in 1984. Dish, lime wood, rope pattern, 1970s F.78.1 Oval double-dish, walnut, 1970s F.78.5 Box, apple wood, 1970s F.78.13

15. Susan Bosence

USAN BOSENCE established her workshop in Sigford, Devon in the 1950s, and is well known for her subtle and delicate prints

for garments and furnishings. She taught at Dartington, Farnham and Camberwell Colleges of Art and published Hand Block Printing & Resist Dyeing in 1985. She was inspired to start block printing on seeing the work of Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher. Alan Powers notes that ‘today, when ‘art’ textiles tend to be rich in colour and profligate in surface design, her work has a noble restraint and purity, and it is no surprise that her family had Quaker origins. Her palette relates closely to the Devon landscape: mostly limited to browns, blues and their mixture as greens with iron rust’. (Crafts, 1993). Her own classic volume sits within a long-established tradition of instructional works: the experienced maker passing on knowledge and factual accounting to the current generation, as a kind of service to the

BROUGHT TO BOOK

past and the future. It is modest and sometimes potently lyrical. Deryn O’Connor, sometime Head of Textiles at the then Farnham College of Art, wrote in the foreword that ‘this book is not a blueprint for the creation of textiles. It cannot be or it would be suffocating. But it is an invitation to share an approach and an aim of creating beauty in textiles that speak in their own terms and are true to their maker’. Hand-block printed length of cotton, paste-resist patterned and over-dyed in manganese, 1950s to 1960s T.75.25 Hand-block printed length of cotton, soledon dyes, 1950s to 1970s T.75.16.a Hand-block printed length of cotton, over-dyed in brown, 1950s to 1970s T.75.10 Hand-block printed length of cotton, wax-resist circles, 1950s to 1970s T.75.18 ‘Hand Block Printing and Resist Dyeing’ David & Charles, Newton Abbot and London, second edition, 1991. Robin Tanner called this book ‘a most remarkable, important, unique and wonderful achievement’. Crafts Study Centre Library Leather bound volume and hand made storage box This remarkable book, ‘Susan Bosence, a record of her hand block printing and resist’ contains the definitive record of her textile samples. 2001.3

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

16. William and Eve Simmonds

ILLIAM AND EVE SIMMONDS ‘made a reality of Morris’s belief that art could be the visible expression of an individual’s

delight in work and the natural world’ (Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum). They both trained as painters, although William was best known for his wood carvings. They also ran a successful puppet theatre. William carved the puppets and painted the scenery. Eve, a talented embroiderer, designed and made the costumes. In the 1920s and 1930s they held professional puppet shows in London, with a regular slot at the Grafton Theatre. A major new book William Simmonds: the silent heart of the Arts and Crafts movement is published in September 2018 (Unicorn Publishers Group). The author Jessica Douglas-Home, herself a writer, painter, etcher and theatre designer, has researched the Simmonds’ material at the Crafts Study Centre. String puppet, a man at the rear end of a pantomime horse, 1920s to 1930s 2003.1.6 –7 String puppet of a soldier, 1920s to 1930s 2003.1.9

17. Alison Britton

LENN ADAMSON WRITES about Alison Britton that ‘an intense, pervasive curiosity can be felt in every aspect of Britton’s

work. It is abundantly there in her pots, no two the same, each invested with its own persona. They often lean forward, as if shaped by her eagerness to explore new possibilities’. Based in London, Britton has exhibited internationally, with a retrospective exhibition touring the UK in 1990 – 92 and a solo exhibition touring Australia in 1996. A major

BROUGHT TO BOOK

retrospective Content and Form was shown at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2016. Alison Britton is also an acclaimed curator and writer, having worked on important exhibitions such as The Raw and the Cooked with Martina Margetts in 1993 and Three by One: a Selection from Three Public Collections in 2009. She is Chair of the Crafts Study Centre and a member of the Peter Dormer Lecture Committee. Her collection of essays, Seeing Things: Collected Writings on Art, Craft and Design was published by Occasional Papers in 2013. Long Based Form Earthenware, hand-built, 1985. Alison Britton notes that the title of this work ‘reflects a time when customs officers found it hard to see a pot as a work of art (and this piece went to North America) and would slap on the import duty if you used the word Pot in the title. Gift of Alison Britton. 2015.11 Pool Hand-built earthenware with poured slip and glaze, 2012. Gift of Alison Britton. 2014.21

18. Emmanuel Cooper

EFFREY WEEKS WROTE in his Guardian obituary that ‘Emmanuel Cooper was a leading potter, who also became widely known as a

writer, editor, critic, biographer, teacher, broadcaster and campaigner for gay rights. His wide cultural and artistic interests and activities were pursued with a relentless energy and great entrepreneurial skill which made him a powerful advocate for the crafts and visual arts.’

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

Emmanuel Cooper was a regular, long-term researcher in the Crafts Study Centre using the Bernard Leach and Lucie Rie archives as foundational documents for his major studies of these two ceramic artists. He also held a highly successful solo exhibition at the Crafts Study Centre in its first year of opening (2004) and the pots were acquired from that show for the Centreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s permanent collections. Bowl Stoneware, with blue/grey glaze, 2004. 2005.23 Bowl Stoneware, with black and white volcanic glaze, 2004. 2005.24 Jug Porcelain, with yellow glaze and gold lustre, 2004. 2005.22 Bowl by Lucie Rie Stoneware, with uranium glaze, 1970s. Gift of Mrs Doreen Reynolds. 2010.3.14 Vase by Lucie Rie Porcelain, early 1970s. Gift of Ella McLeod. P.74.78 Vase by Lucie Rie Stoneware, circa 1954. Gift of Muriel Rose. P.74.20

BROUGHT TO BOOK

19. Barron and Larcher

HYLLIS BARRON and Dorothy Larcher joined forces in around 1923 and exhibited, worked and lived together from that time. Their

studio in Hampstead was based around their rediscovery of the process of hand block-printing textiles using natural dyes. Jean Vacher notes that ‘as designer-makers, Barron and Larcher formed a unique partnership seeing the process through from design to the finished piece’. They moved studio to larger premises in Painswick, Gloucestershire in 1930. They worked both to commission (with major projects for Girton College, Cambridge and Winchester Cathedral, for example) and sold textiles and accessories at Muriel Rose’s Little Gallery, Chelsea in the 1930s. In 1958 Barron and Larcher worked closely with Robin Tanner to record their textile and working practices, memorialising these in two massive volumes, gifted, along with their textile archive, to the Crafts Study Centre. Block printed fabrics, 1920 – 40 Gifts of Robin and Heather Tanner Alice Cotton lawn. T.74.178.c Belge Probably hand spun and hand woven Indian cotton. T.74.182.a Skate Cotton. T.74.243.b Old Flower Cotton. Robin Tanner noted that Old Flower was the first block print designed by Dorothy Larcher. T.74.257.a 28

CRAFTS STUDY CENTRE

Spine Cotton organdie. Gift of Robin and Heather Tanner. T.74.249.c

20. Acknowledgements Curator: Professor Simon Olding, Director, Crafts Study Centre Curatorial support: Greta Bertram, Curator, Crafts Study Centre Technical support: Mona Craven; Hannah Davies, Messums, Wiltshire; Nao Fukumoto; Sarah Steel Archive advice: Shirley Dixon Administration: Margaret Madden and Ingrid Stocker Design: David Hyde

BROUGHT TO BOOK