Archibald Knox-And The Liberty Style.

Archibald Knox has for some time been recognised as one of the countries most influential designers who worked predominantly for the company Liberty & Co.

The famous shop in Regent Street would become an international focus of art, design, and good taste. Its founder would shape art history through the wares that he sold.

Knox helped to create the Celtic revival.

In Italy Style Liberty is the term generally used to describe Art Nouveau, such was its reputation.

Though England would help shape the worlds art through the thought process best exemplified by John Ruskin and William Morris on the continent the inspirational work of Viollet-le-Duc would also help give birth to a movement that had more freedom.

The restraint that developed in Britain steered the public away from the designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, whose Glasgow School of Art was sneered at as out of date when completed. On the continent he helped inspire a generation of artists and designers such as Joseph Hoffman as head of The Wiemer Werkstatte.

In Europe the freedom to express forged a more liberated version of art Nouveau.

The term Art Nouveau, French for new art was the name of the shop opened by Samuel Bing that was a direct influence from the Liberty & Co store.

The Celtic style would remain popular for a generation and the man who was to do more to drive it forward would be Archibald Knox.

Knox was born 1864 Cronkbourne (Tromode) Isle of Man. His father was an engineer and he was expected to follow the family tradition. He felt isolated amidst the pressure to, like his brothers join the family firm. Robert Knox was concerned about his sons use of the pencil complaining “Why he doesn't even know how to hold a hammer”.

At an early age he lost the top of his index finger and was happy to sketch and draw.

He was surrounded with Ornament of a Celtic nature, he would be sure to be influenced by this.

Owen Jones Grammar of Ornament would be published in 1856 and would hold a section on Celtic ornament.

Principles of Ornament would be outlined by Christopher Dresser in 1876 in his volume Studies in Design.

He attended St Barnabas Elementary School and then Douglas Grammar School both in Douglas becoming a pupil teacher 1878-1883.

In 1887 he passed the examination in 'Design' with a first class result in 'Principles of Ornament and went on to achieve a Art Masters Certificate in 1889

In 1893 he published an article in 'The Builder' entitled 'Ancient Crosses in The Isle Of Man'. He was possibly working in the offices of the architect and designer M.H. Baillie Scott until 1896.

He left Isle of Man in 1897 to take up a teaching post at Redhill Surrey.

Knox contacted the firm of Liberty possibly through his association with Baillie Scott who had been designing fabrics for the company from as early as 1893.

He became design master at the art School Kingston-upon-Thames in 1899 the same year as the first Cymric patterns became available in the Liberty store.

In 1900 the same year as he purchased a cottage at Sulby on the Isle of Man the cheaper Tudric range was introduced in direct competition to the continental manufacturers. Knox submitted several of piece meal designs.

He would live close to Christopher Dresser who designed, indirectly for Liberty.

1903 sees Liberty taking part in the Arts and Crafts Exhibition with four items by Knox.

By 1904 he was submitting huge amounts of designs for Silver, Pewter, carpets, pottery, jewellery, textiles and possibly furniture to Liberty's. While still teaching at Kingston-upon-Thames. In 1904 he was appointed principle at Wimbledon.

In 1909 Liberty & Co sold several designs to their competitors James Connell.

South Kensington Examiners complain about Knox's style of teaching which he rejects and resigns.

One of the pupils pull out a bunch of designs in a waste-paper basket in Kingston Art School and save them. These are now in the V&A.

Denise and Winifred Tuckfield along with six other students leave in disgust at the acceptance of Knox resignation.

He returned to The Isle of Man in 1912 but on the 21^st august that year left for Philadelphia from Liverpool on a schooner named Dominion. He failed to find suitable employment though he taught for a while in Pennsylvania School of Industrial arts. In a letter to Denise Tuckfield he states misgivings about the Renaissance architecture that made up the city. A style of architecture he did not like. 'Renaissance architecture is a scholars work-Gothic is work done by a man of sentiment and feeling'. He would say.

He had carried a letter of introduction from Arthur Lazenby Liberty which no doubt helped him secure work with Bromley and Co designing carpets.

He also carried with him Liberty catalogues and his work was recognised. Though in the letter to Ms Tuckfield he states that one firm called it the art of the drug store.

He moved to New York. In 1913 he returned to Isle of Man.

He taught at the Aliens Detention camp there and served as a censor during the war.

In 1917 Arthur Lazenby Liberty died. Knox designed his memorial stone at The Lee Church in Buckinghamshire.

1920 sees him teaching art at Douglas High school and he also travels to Italy to study frescoes.

He held a one man exhibition in Ottawa Canada of his paintings.

In 1933 he died suddenly and was buried at the age of 69 in Braddon Cemetery Isle of Man.

The Knox designs held in the V&A have long thought to be the rejected designs.

Knox designs have long held an attribution based on elements of design known to be by Knox's own hand.

There is a formula to the work of Knox he would take a rough sketch and rework it over and over again and eventually the Celtic interlacing would appear as if through a fog of smudges and marks. This a very interesting way to work it almost feels mystical. When the work was coming to life with smudges and all and parts of the paper rubbed out with grey lines all over the paper, a transfer was taken by tracing the design using a sharpened lead pencil.

Where semi precious stones were to be placed would often be highlighted with watercolour.

The designs would be annotated with shape size and details such as stones and enamels.

Numbers that were intended to relate to the grouping of several pieces in sequence maybe to be used as a unit such as a tray to be combined with a tea service.

Knox kept a stock book detailing which designs Liberty & Co actually purchased.

The majority of the designs held in the V&A collection were intended for the Cymric range of metalwork.

By 1900 the output was catching up with design and what had been happening on the continent with pewter was put into practice.

Lazenby Liberty had acquired the designs for several competition winners held by The Studio magazine. There was a rule that the purchase of the design could not be purchased for more than the prize money won.

At this stage the numbers are not up to 50 and the Tea Caddy design from the Studio by Tramp (David Veazey). The design for a tankard by ' Parnassus' Charlotte E. Elliot, 111 Chatham Street Liverpool has the number 049.

Rivet as much as you can;

Don't countersink the rivets;

Give them a firm head so they may have a firm grip;

complete them that they cannot hold dirt;

Give them desired form; they are sin clipped:

Flattened too obviously.

He would proclaim to his pupils.

With the pewter range there was no need for riveting in the moulded production and it seems that this is intended for silver work.

The discarded drawings were from 1911-12 when they were binned when he stormed out of his position at Kingston.

So it is by attribution that we put many designs as the work of Knox and Liberty was adamant that the name Liberty & Co would be the only attribution that would appear on the work.

Though the Cymric and Tudric pewter wares are widely known to be by Knox.

Most of the Liberty & Co archives were destroyed by enemy bombing during the war.

That said the Celtic revival that Archibald Knox helped to bring to the masses leaves him placed as one of the most influential designers of the Arts and Crafts period.

The students who walked out from Kingston now formed the 'Knox Guild of Craft and Design' and set up premises at 24 Market St Kingston. He supervised and attended several exhibitions and showed his rarely viewed watercolours.

They exhibited at the 1924 exhibition hall not only work but set up looms and other equipment.

Denise Wren (nee Tuckfield) continued with designs at Oxshott Pottery which is still run today by her daughter Rosemary. Her designs of 1913 show direct reference to the principles of design laid down by her mentor and do look familiar in style. She also designed alphabet that look as if it could have been made at the hand of Archibald Knox.

Liberty sold designs attributed to Knox that were manufactured at the Watts Pottery, Compton.

Most of his work was attributed to Liberty under the usual format.

He seems to have been an unassuming character who would not have minded preferring to be part of something much bigger.

He leaves us a legacy that helped to form the Celtic spirit and the history of its artistic presence in these isles that now too becomes a part of its recent history to inspire further generations in the not too distant future.

Pilkingtons Vase Decorated by Richard Joyce-Piece of the Week.

I have owned this vase for some time now and have never been able to sell it. I have had the chance but always held it back. It always seemed to work in with my decoration. I always had a spot for it.

A beautiful creation by Pilkington decorated by Richard Joyce the best decorator at Pilkingtons at the best period in their creative history.

The glory of Pilkingtons lustre ware has for some time been eclipsed by the work of the William De Morgan factory.

Because they made so many different styles, that covered a large time span, I feel, people pigeon hole the wares. Maybe that's understanding as there are many differing qualities at Pilkingtons and a plethora of commercial work.

Is the marketplace finally appreciating the lustred ware of Pilkingtons?

The factory was formed almost by accident in 1891, when discovery of clay at Clifton, five miles north of Manchester.

This discovery, in the colliery, owned by J and J Evans, which the Pilkington Brothers ran on their behalf.

The Red Marl clay was found during faulty coal mining engineering at, what was known as the Pendleton fault, and it was thought this could be used for bricks.

A rather better decision, was made, to make tiles and the Pilkington Tile and Pottery company was formed.

William Burton was brought in, he was a young chemist who had learnt his trade at Wedgwood.

He had studied chemistry at the Royal School of Mines at South Kensington.

The operation was set up in the most professional of manners. The Pilkington Brothers had no experience and left the running up of the plant to William Burton and his brother Joseph who joined him 1895.

It had good canal and rail links and was a good spot for ready labour.

Burton hired the many specialists from his contacts.

Burton had been an examiner for City and Guilds examination board and his theory that potters should be trained in workshops and not schools was to be implemented.

His beneficial experience brought in a style of management that was to help and encourage the workers. He took care in their welfare and training.

Some workers were taken to see the Paris Exhibition of 1900 and students were sent to art schools, expenses paid.

Joseph the younger brother was a renowned expert on early pottery, especially Chinese.

He was, the main experimenter with glazes, and his work has often been eclipsed by the bolder steps of his older brother.

1893 after two years of tile making began several small pottery experiments had gone well.

Trade increased and in 1896 and a new slip house, grinding plant, tile plant, bisque oven and placing shed were erected.

It is debatable as in the order of good potting, whether it be the science of the glazes and its effect on the clay, or the art of the craftsman and decorator. Yet, you can not have one without the other.

Potters around 1900 were now being led by the advances of the scientists. They could no longer ignore these leaps in chemistry and the public wanted the new, or in this period literally the style of the New Art or Art Nouveau. With the commitment to the new style what better than to commission designers of note such as Walter Crane, who it has been claimed, rightly or wrongly, was the very first pioneer of the style.

At the 1901 Glasgow Exhibition the company showed four panels with designs by Alphons Mucha.

C.F.A. Voysey added great company to their stable of designers.

There began an obsession with colour. Looking back retrospectively this period of the 1890's was a period of the impressionists and Manet and Matisse.

This is a period of intense commercial competition and the commerce was being led by inspiring palettes of colour, mostly led by chemists, something new and different....that sold.

The various niches were filled not only here but on the continent of America who had taken up the arts and crafts ideal.

Europe was changing, new styles highlighted borders and heritage, as well as a new take on that past, such as the salt glazed designs of Henry Van De Velde in Belgium.

Theodore Deck, did fantastic Persian inspired work as did William De Morgan.

Lachenal in France with his velvet blues, Dalapayrat even had a colour named Dalpayrat Rouge. Many others on the continent, not only in France, were causing sensations with new unique wares.

There really was an international run on the New Art.

The public lapped it up decorating their houses in the Art Nouveau.

So what of the historical references to the most basic of tasks, making a vessel.

Decoration to pots possibly came before the art of cave painting by the simple incision in clay, and the decoration of a utensil. I believe this is incised in our DNA. In our primeval inner core of sensibility. Abstract art began in primitive times, well before we can reach back justifiably with confirmation.

Gordon Forsyth, it is said, saw the twisted and bent steelwork of the British pavilion of the Brussels Exhibition of 1910 and immediately was inspired to design lustre glazed pots with sweeping swirling depictions of flames in lustrous colours, already stabilised by the chemists.

So now the work of chemistry became as important as skill.

Many new art factories knew what they were doing and the public wanted this new art.

Back in Lancashire. In 1913 there were twenty four tile kilns, seven biscuit ovens and three ghost ovens all functioning well.

At some point, a different white earthenware, combining china clay, flint, from France, ball clay and china stone, that was imported from Cornwall Devon and Dorset by ship and then barge.

The company had its own wharf and a storage facility that facilitated the weathering and the maturing of the clay.

The company made a profit, but in 1905 saw a £124 loss just as the lustre ware was about to go into production. Only pottery decorated by glaze was being made at this time.

During the First World War tile production diminished a loss of £13,516. But soon the company returned to profit. 1920 saw a profit of £28,047 and it prospered until the economic downturn of the thirties saw the closure, except for prestigious contracts, when the pottery was all but closed.

From 1917 production of pottery fell from 10.5per cent to 1.3per cent of production. It had always been a small scale enterprise funded by the prosperous side of the company.

The lustre wares an even smaller enterprise within.

Lapis Ware, much easier to produce, was introduced in the late twenties.

In 1937 the company was renamed Pilkingtons Tiles Ltd with the cessation of pottery production. During The Second World War they even annealed steel bars under government contract.

They were even asked to carry out experiments on pottery bullets by the war office.

Revived in 1948-57, they never recreated the past glory of the pottery wares and closed again.

The tile business merged with Carter and Co of Poole on 1964, companies with similar histories of tile and pottery production. Combining the both companies, Lancastrian pottery started production in 1972 but closed 1975 using some of the shapes from a broad spectrum of wares from 1904-38.

The company is still making tiles on a vast scale.

So what of my vase and who was Richard Joyce.

He was born in 1873 in the hamlet of Boothorpe near Blackford, Derbyshire.

He studied at the Swadlincote school of art, he had, at one time worked for Bretby, run by Henry Toothe. He had also worked for Moore's Brothers. He moved to Pilkingtons in 1903 where he remained until his death in1931. His work is always of the finest quality. He mainly decorated the pieces with animal and fish studies. He was a unassuming man by all accounts. He was an angler for sure, nobody has told me this, but I know that he was. Within this vase he has captured the gravel bed river scene, from below the water. Its as if, you have cut a vertical slice into the river, and have been able to join the creatures. It is clever depiction of Dace amongst the flowing reed beds. And what convinces me he was a fisherman most? It is the single Grayling that is there.

When fishing, or river trotting for Dace, a small but lively breed, in shallow but fast running section, you sometimes have to get in the water, and feel the current. Slowly trotting a waggler float down to the jittery and easily spooked, but beautiful fish. You sometimes see them darting around you as you quietly creep closer. Like silver doubloons being spun through the water. You will catch a couple of Dace, if you are lucky and then a few more and then you will catch a different coloured one, as if by surprise you catch a small but strong more colourful fish of the river, the Grayling.

Related to the game fish more than the course fish there are always a few that shoal with Dace.

As if, by return compliments, the same thing happens within the shoals of Grayling you will catch the odd Dace.

They don't grow that large but are great sport on light 1lb line. Richard Joyce saw all that. 

Its like he was in the river with the fish. A very clever touch.     

Charles Rennie Mackintosh-Did Liverpool Ruin His Career?

It may, or may not be true but it is certain that Liverpool played a substantial part in CRM’s life that was not at all helpful to his future or his esteem.

Picture left Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Right a very similar looking,  Herbert Mcnair
Not many people outside the art world know Charles Rennie Mackintosh had links with Liverpool or that half of the Glasgow Four actually lived there, at 54 Oxford Street. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/doves/54oxfordst/index.aspx

The principal rooms at 54 Oxford St were published by the Studio magazine in 1901 in a special edition devoted to ‘Modern Domestic Architecture and Decoration’.

Herbert McNair McNair was the head of applied art in Liverpool
His wife taught embroidery and enameling.
Most of the furniture from Oxford Street was in Sudley Art Gallery before it was butchered by Dr David "Fuzzy Felt" Fleming the current Director.      
http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/sudley-house-why-have-liverpool-museums.html

They moved to Liverpool since 1899.

Here is a Mcnair design for a poster.
How they would influence the likes of Cassandra Annie Walker who worked for the Della Robbia Pottery.

 http://waynecolquhoun.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-della-robbia-pottery-by-peter-hyland.html

The city was moving forward at a brisk pace and there was work to be had, especially for talented artists and tutors.

So important was Liverpool to CRM or so he thought, that he submitted a design for the then proposed Anglican Cathedral in 1902.

He and his wife Margaret would be able to join his soul mates. The four would be re-united perhaps.

We all love Giles Gilbert Scott’s sandstone monument but what would have been the sight that greets all those people who come to the city on easy flights now.

That comes, from all over the world. What if the other Scot, CRM’s design had been chosen.

Would it now be held, in as high regard, as the Barcelona Guadi Cathedral?

We will never know.
Would we have a structure that went way above the usual realm of architecture, something CRM, as with the Glasgow School of Art, was as capable of creating.
Such was the inner spirit of a man who could capture the spirit of an age.
Alas it was thought to play a bit safer with a more traditional design.



Mackintosh did not submit an outlandish design but for sure he would have changed it as the project went on.

Charles Reilly, later to be made a knight of the realm, who was an engineer, also submitted a design. Reilly defied the Gothic brief and submitted a classical one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Herbert_Reilly
He would be appointed Roscoe Professor of Architecture in 1902.
F.M Simpson was his predecessor.
Augustus John had left the city and The Art Sheds were swept away along with its teachings of applied arts. McNair briefly taught at the Sandon Studios. http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/exhibitions/doves/artsheds/index.aspx

Reilly inherited a regime that was looking to the Ruskin ideals of the Gothic.

Ruskin had condemned the Renaissance and said Italian classicism was not correct styling for our nation. Even though it had long been the chosen method of build.

Waterhouse was the darling architect. Two years after his Lime Street building was erected it was covered in soot from the station trains.

Reilly thought the 19th century building of the picturesque had replaced clear thinking with sentimentality. Though he built a block of cottages, the only executed commission for Lever at 15-27 Lower Road, Port Sunlight.

They were almost Regency and were criticized because the veranda blocked out light to the lower floors. Lever himself considered demolishing them.

Reilly rejected Art Nouveau and its derivatives. But what did he build?
 America was showing the way forward.
Louis Sullivan and his pupils rebuilt Chicago and thoughts were being given to the high-rise city block style.

Mackintosh had a mixed reaction, when opened, to the now world acclaimed Glasgow School of Art.

When he started it was at the cutting edge and when he had finished construction it was labelled out of date and old fashioned.

The students seemed to hate it. Fashions were changing.

We do see the change in Mackintosh designs over the years, some of his shapes become geometric and angular almost anticipating the modern style that was later phrased as Art Deco after the 1925 Exhibition of Art Decoratif in Paris.

It was obvious that he was misunderstood by a lot of his peers. Well how were they to know that his inspiration would help mould designs by Joseph Maria Olbrich and his colleagues at the Vienna Secessionist, into world changing principles of design that would metamorphose into the Weimar Werkstatte that in turn, would influence the Bauhaus?

And we wouldn’t let him build a cathedral.

Sir Charles Reilly who would later travel with Lutyens through India, was one of the founding fathers of the first school of Urban design in the country here in Liverpool, and no sooner had he got power, he sacked McNair.

Mackintosh in 1927 called him “A bombastic second rate professor”.

Reilly had a new style of Beaux Arts. He wanted to make the city the Athens of the North.

Ironic, or even Ionic that Mackintosh Architecture, in Glasgow, is now more famous than that of Alexander “Greek” Thomson who built monumental, where they also wanted to become the Athens of the, slightly further, North.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Thomson

Gavin Stamps who taught in Glasgow, says in his lecture of 9th November 1996 at the Walker Art Gallery Liverpool. “Thomson was the main ambassador of a revival style that never went away”
He went on to say that Glasgow has a grid pattern that links it closely with the style adopted in America.

Mackintosh would later go on to call Reilly, in a letter found in a letter, he said that “the American system was wrong and that Reilly did not even reproduce it effectively”, such was his hatred for the man who disliked Arts and Crafts yet wanted to be part of Lutyens.

Even though Lutyens early style was built around the same rustic ideals as that of Voysey albeit with a slightly differing tinge.

Lutyens was given a crack at the Catholic Cathedral though he only built the Crypt. Oh how I hated it, when they started the building of what Arthur Dooley christened Paddy’s Wigwam in the 70’s.

It was a whole scale shift away from the basic principles of the craftsman that previous generations had endeavoured to uphold.

It leaked like siv, like a giant colander. They tried to be different.

Maybe they too should have played safe with a recognised design, and built it out of sandstone, but it was done on the cheap.

I don’t hate it and there are a lot of people who now like it.

There is no accounting for taste. Jonathan Glancey called it a space rocket.

So what would a Mackintosh cathedral have been like?

What would have happened if Charles Rennie had been living here in Liverpool?

Would the ego of Charles Reilly with his rich patronage by the likes of Lord Leverhume the soap magnate have allowed it?

There is no doubt that some of his pupils such as Herbert Rowse left monuments for the future, in Reilly’s favoured Beaux Arts style. He later went on to adopt a Dutch style for the Philharmonic Hall.

But Mackintosh could create something special out of a couple of lengths of 3 by 2 joined together and made into a cabinet.

He had something that appeared unique with the enrichment of his designs with his Celtic roots and the ability to extract an emotion from a dead piece of timber, from a plank, and make it come alive.

There is something of the primeval about some of his designs that tap into the inner core.

Imagine him being let loose on a whole Cathedral.

However it was not to be and the city did not have a lasting legacy that would echo the links between the two great cities of Glasgow and Liverpool and their Celtic roots. The two cities at times, appear to be hued out of the same seam of sandstone that backbones the country. That gives them strength and resilience as if made from girders, that tackles adversity head on.

But how many towns are envious that Mackintosh was not one of theirs and never built for them. I must say I have a long lasting feeling that if we had a Cathedral that straddles the highest point on the Mersey by the Big Mac we would all be better off.

Was this the turning point for a career that could have taken him stratospheric to one of the greats and not just a house builder up north that, still, no matter where you look at it from, he inspired the whole of Europe.

I could ask a pertinent question.
 What did Charles Reilly build?

http://www.huntsearch.gla.ac.uk/cgi-bin/foxweb/huntsearch_Mackintosh/summaryresults.fwx?searchterm=keyword+has+furniture&browseMode=on&browseSet=furniture+and+furniture+designs
Hunterian collection

Dr Christopher Dresser-STUDIES IN DESIGN. Published by Cassell, Petter and Galpin.

I was very pleased this week to acquire this Folio entitled STUDIES IN DESIGN by Christopher Dresser which is printed to the highest standards.

Though the binding is in a distressed state the plates inside are mostly as they were when the left Cassell, Petter and Galpin print works.

Each plate is frameable. Though I will never break up a book.   

It has been reprinted but as an original of 1876 It appears to be quite rare.

Its all been said about how far ahead Dresser's designs were.

Though a lot of them are now more esoteric than commercial there is no doubting his place in the history of design, not just in this country but in the world.

If my memory serves me correctly and I am typing this as I think, he collected glass for Louis Comfort Tiffany on his travels round the globe. Where he collected designs, quite a lot of them in the Japanese taste  Not all designs are actually by him, but by his studio. This was a common practice in Victorian times, as an example in today's terms, we can say, Lord Foster cant do all the drawings for all his architectural projects.

Here in splendid colour we can see the vibrancy and attention to detail that was applied in a Victorian age of heavy brown furniture.  If I also remember rightly I was once told by a learned authority that his father was a tax inspector in Liverpool.

I thought you may like to share the beauty of some of the plates. 

And I thought I would like to share it.

Click on the link below to read the e-book on line.

https://archive.org/details/Studiesdesign00Dres

Arts and Crafts Candlestick In The Manner of WAS Benson-Piece of the Week

Copper and Brass Arts and Crafts Candlestick. 

In the manner of WAS Benson.

This is a fantastic piece of design.

Reflect back to a time before electricity when a candlestick could be knocked over, so this design is counter-balanced with the round ball weight that is part of the design.

It was also designed to be carried in the hand and placed down safely.

10cm high by 24cm long

It is in overall good condition for its age.

 It has a few knocks but I would want to see this as it has been used. It would benefit from a bit of a polish. 

This is possibly a design by........ 

Carl Deffner was born 13 Oct 1856 in Esslingen. On 11 June 1892 he married Charlotte (Lolo) Schoenleber. Records show only one son for Carl and his wife, Karl "Max" Deffner (1900-1985) who was an engineer.   Deffner died in 1948.

'Pass' Chair Designed by Ernest Gimson-Piece of the Week

These are remarkable chairs designed by Ernest Gimson.

Yes, we know most people think a chair is for sitting on, but if you study the evolution of design through the ages nowhere is it more apparent than in furniture design.

The way a chair sits is paramount to its worth, oh yes, and how comfortable it is, also matters to some.

 But sometimes comfort can give way to design because after all a piece of furniture is also there to look at.

You may have a surplus of chairs or tables, but sometimes just for aesthetic reasons it proves important to have something around you that you, can adore, that gives you pleasure.
If it works as a design and you can reliably sit on it well there you go.

This is a design which, at its time of manufacture has one foot in he past.
The splats on the back of the chair are taken from a French design.
The whole chair looks as if it could have come from an older period, which is of course something the artisans of the British arts and Crafts movement strived to achieve.

All the honesty and integrity of construction is evident in the design and I particularly love the way the upright support for the ever so slender armrest almost looks as if it had been speared into the frame.

As if a matador, had launched a pair of daggers diagonally, just to put a finishing touch on the carefully thought out design.

Apart from design this is an architectural important element of the construction.

They allow the narrowness of the uprights to astound you at the delicacy. They seem to float, those the arms that gently bend.

It is both a masculine and a feminine design for this reason.

Without the surprising part of its design you could never enable such a fragile looking armrest to function.

And function it does it is comfortable and is supportive of the back. You know it’s a craftsman made piece as all the joints are pegged.
It still feels fresh and modern today as when it was designed in 1907.

Edward Gardiner probably made this chair, on or shortly after that date.

It is known at The Pass Chair, simply because, a Mrs Pass commissioned the design from F.W Troop.

The design was used as platform chair for a church hall in Wootten Fitzpaine in Devon.

Also known a higher backed version, which is often described as The Chairman’s Chair.

Cheltenham Museum has a pair in their collection donated by B.J Fletcher who was the headmaster of the Leicester School of Art and also Birmingham Municipal School of Art.

Fletcher is known for his designs for Harry Peach of Dryad and it was said he was an exponent o the arts and crafts ideals.

That aside it is just a smashing looking chair.

This chair is now longr available.

Pair of Chairs by George Montague Ellwood-Piece Of The Week

 A pair of exceptional Arts & Crafts side chairs designed by George Montague Ellwood & made by J S Henry.
The single central back splat united by two lower cross stretchers which cleverly emulate the lower twin side stretchers & single side uprights which are united by a higher single cross stretcher with its roundel.
A single variation to this chair with copper inlay sold at Sotheby's London on 22nd Feb 2006, it made £5040 with the buyer's premium that chair was almost identical in form.

George Montague Ellwood (1875-1955) Artist, Designer & Interior Decorator was educated at Holloway Art School & later studied in Paris, Berlin, Dresden & Vienna & at Camden School of Art from 1916 to 1924. In 1897 he won the gold medal for his furniture designs at the National Competition, South Kensington. He was one of the founding members of the 'Guild of Art Craftsmen', comprising the likes of Onslow Whiting (metal & repousse' work) J Osmond (a carver), & Richard Garbe (sculptor).They held regular exhibitions of their works, situated at Camden Square, London.

Some of Ellwood's best work was between 1900-1905/6 when he was the head designer for J S Henry (John Sollie Henry, founded c1880) of Old Street, London.

Ellwood knew how to strengthen a piece of furniture yet retain a lightness of touch that is still surprising in its vision, today.

The simple addition of the upright that connects to an additional internal stretcher gives the chair an architectural strength, yet manages to give the chair an air of lightness.

All this extra work adding to the integral strength in such a way that he was able to create modernism in a Victorian age.

 Other designers such as C F A Voysey, W J Neatby, G Walton, W A S Benson, & E G Punnett whom also supplied designs for J S Henry were tryng hard to encapsulate the same vision.

J S Henry made furniture to their designs in oak, walnut, green stained sycamore & mahogany, often inlaid with fruitwood, pewter & copper depicting stylistic & organic designs. Ellwood's designs for J S Henry were exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exhibition & won a silver medal. He exhibited at a number of venues between 1899 & 1915, including four times at the Royal Academy. He also worked for Bath Cabinetmakers & the Bristol based firm of Trapnell & Gane. Later he traded as Ellwood & Sledmere at 53 Mortimer Street, London. & designed posters for the London Underground Group between 1912 & 1914 now displayed at The Transport Museum.

He became editor of Drawing & Design Journal & in later years continuing his life's work he wrote several books on drawing & design.

Della Robbia Pottery Charger by Cassandra Annie Walker-Piece of the Week.

One of the reasons for me to go to the Williamson Art Gallery on the Wirral to look at the Della Robbia was to see how one of my acquisitions fares.
I think it may be correct to say that I think this is the best example of Della Robbia I have seen.
Designed by Cassandra Annie Walker it is of a design I have not seen before. Purchased in France it is of two Sirens luring a ship of sailors onto the rocky outcrop. An Art Nouveau take on the mythical tale. The colours are fantastic. I felt as if it was coming home when it was found in France the lady asked me if I knew what it was as she hadn't been able to sell it as it is unknown in France.
 Oh yes I said as I clutched it when paid for.