century: 'They . . . thought it could be artificially replanted in a society totally different from that which gave birth to it' (Coll. Works, vol. XXII, p. 819). 12 O. Jones in Journal of Design, V, 1851, p. 90. 13 O. Jones, The True and the False, p. 39. 14 Ibid. p. 14. Cf. Morris: . . . the necessary and essential beauty which arises out of the fitness of a piece of craftmanship for the use (for) which it is made'. (Quoted from May Morris, W. M., Artist, Writer, Socialist, Oxford, 1936, vol. 1, p. 317. The quotation comes from a paper The Ideal Book, read in 1893. Stanley Morison drew my attention to it.) 15 W. Dyce in Journal of Design, I, 1849, p. 93. 16 Journal of Design, I, 1849, p. 80. Cf. Morris: 'As to paperhangings... the more mechanical the process, the less direct should be the imitation of natural forms' (Coll. Works, vol. XXII, p. 190). 17 W. Dyce in Journal of Design, I, 1849, pp. 91 et seq. 18 R. Redgrave in Journal of Design, IV, 1850-1, p. 15. Cf. Morris: 'As for a carpet design, it seems quite clear that it should be quite flat, that it should give no more... than the merest hint of one plane behind another' (Coll. Works, vol. XXII, p. 195). 19 Journal of Design, III, 1850, p. 175. 20 One of the Lectures on the Results of the Great Exhibition arranged by the Society of Arts (cf. p. 31). Wyatt's lecture was given on 21 April 1852. 21 Morris: 'Simplicity is the foundation of all worthy art' (Coll. Works, vol. XXII, p. 294). 22 Seven Lamps, Library Edn., vol. VIII, P. 60. 23 II, 1849-50, pp. 72 et seq. My attribution of the unsigned review is based on the identity of points of view with those in the later article referred to in note 34. 24 Journal of Design, VI, 1851-2, pp. 25 et seq. 25 Ruskin wrote (App. 12 to vol. 1, Library Edn. vol. IX, pp. 436–9) that Pugin ‘is not a great architect, but one of the smallest possible or conceivable architects' and links up that hysterical statement with equally hysterical ones against the 'miserable influence' of Romanism, the 'fatuity, self-inflicted and the stubborness in resistance to God's Word' which characterizes the Catholic. 'No imbecility', he goes on, is ‘so absolute, no treachery so contemptible' as theirs. Later on, in 1856, he defended himself explicitly against ever having in the least been influenced by Pugin (Lib. Edit., vol. V, pp. 428 et seq.): 'I glanced at Pugin's Contrasts once, in the Oxford architectural reading room, during an idle forenoon. His Remarks on Articles in The Rambler (1850) were brought under my notice by some of the reviews. I never read a word of any other of his works, not feeling, from the style of his architecture, the smallest interest in his opinion.' One would be readier to believe Ruskin if it were not for such facts as the complete omission of his married life from Praeterita. 26 Contrasts, 1836, p. 1. 27 The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, 1841, p. 1. 28 The True Principles, pp. 25 and 26. The position of Pugin in the history of architectural and art criticism is in fact much more complex than it must appear here. I have brought together some more passages of importance in a florilegium in The Architectural Review, XCIV, 1943. For an excellent summing up see Sir Kenneth Clark, The Gothic Revival, London, 1928. Briefly what happened was this. In Pugin, owing to his newly acquired Catholic zeal, the earlier aesthetic teachings of such romantic converts as Friedrich von Schlegel were revived and applied specifically to architecture and design. Schlegel (Europa, 1803, vol. II, pt. II, pp. 143– 5) said: 'Vergeblich sucht ihr die Malerkunst wieder hervorzurufen, wenn nicht erst Religion oder philosophische Mystik wenigstens die Idee derselben wieder hervorgerufen hat.' Pugin said that churches of any, including architectural, value 'can only be produced... by ... men who were thoroughly imbued with devotion for, and faith in, the religion for whose worship they were erected' (Contrasts, p. 2). This religious foundation gave a new twist to the bienséance and convenance of the classic French architectural theory of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. To consider utility now became not a matter of common sense but of truthfulness. Cole, Owen Jones and Wyatt took over the utilitarian theses without bothering about their philosophical premises, the Gothic Revival architects (notably Gilbert Scott, who in his Remarks on Secular and Domestic Architecture, London, 1858, p. 241, praised Pugin as 'the great reformer of architecture') took over the exclusive faith in Gothic form and the substructure of the system of which to Pugin it was the necessary expression, while Ruskin and then Morris took over the whole system but without its religious foundation. They agreed with Pugin (and the earlier Romantics-from Herder and young Goethe, and from Edward Young onwards) that art and architecture express the state of mind and feeling of a man and a society, but they did not draw the narrow conclusion that only a restoration of medieval Christianity could restore the arts. Still, their own vaguer medievalist sociology was perhaps no more real. 29 Journal of Design, IV, 1850-1, p. 75. 30 Cf. also Fine Art, London and New York, 1870, p. 75. 31 Journal of Design, II, 1849–50, p. 72. 32 'Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture', Architecture and Painting, 1853, Addenda to Lectures I and II, Library Edn., vol. XII, p. 83. 33 Seven Lamps, Library Edn., vol. VIII, p. 36 See my Pioneers of Modern Design, Harmondsworth, 1960, pp. 133 et seq. 37 In praise of iron and glass still a little earlier (and not mentioned either in Sigfried Giedion's Space, Time and Architecture or my Pioneers of Modern Design) is Journal of Design, II, 1849-50, p. 148, on Bunning's Coal Exchange (illustrated by Henry-Russell Hitchcock in The Architectural Review, CI, 1947 and later in his volume of the Pelican History of Art): 'We have a structure which manifests at once that the architect very properly made its purpose and destination the first and ruling thought.... Mr Bunning has successfully employed iron and glass abundantly, usefully and ornamentally.' Again an article on The Prospect of Iron and Glass Edifices came out in VI, 1851–2, pp. 16 et seq. Here we read: 'The novel union of building materials necessitates a new treatment, and we have our hopes will produce a new era in architecture'. 38 See for example, Journal of Design, III, 1850, p. 190. 39 Library Edn., vol. III, p. 456. 40 Library Edn., vol. XXXV, p. 47. 41 Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng., X, 14 January, 1851, p. 133. 45 Ibid., p. 268. 46 Fine Art, loc. cit., pp. 49–51. 47 Cf. the all-pervading emphasis placed on the lack of balance between thought and feeling during the nineteenth century in both Dr Giedion's monumental books Space, Time and Architecture, and Mechanization takes Command. 48 See, for example, in The Lamp of Life: 'So long as men work as men putting their heart into what they do... there will be that in the handling which is above all price, (Library Edn., vol. VIII, p. 214), and even more clearly: "The right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this: Was it done with enjoyment was the carver happy, while he was about it?' (Lib. Edn., vol. VIII, p. 218). It is from this point of view also that Ruskin had to condemn the Crystal Palace and railway stations. There are indeed no happy craftsmen expected to be busy on them. But, and here appears a fundamental fallacy, while the criterion of the joy in making can be applied to craft—a hand-made vase possesses certain qualities due to the touch of the human hand which in the machine-turned vase must be absent-it cannot be applied to much that is best in architecture, unless one is ready to confine the aesthetic values of architecture to the values of decoration added to it, as indeed Ruskin did-see Note 31. But the strictly architectural values of architecture, i.e. values of siting, grouping, proportion, relations of solid and void, spatial rhythm, etc., have at all times been a matter of design largely independent of the executive hand. That is true of the Parthenon as of the Pantheon, of Périgueux as of the Palazzo Pitti. 49 The Exhibition under its Commercial Aspect', Journal of Design, V, 1851, pp. 153 et seq. Morris on competition can be read in several of his Lectures on Socialism (Coll. Works, vol. XXIII); for example: 'I hold that the condition of competition between man and man is bestial' (p. 172). Also, a little more in detail: 'so long as the system of competition in the production and the exchange of the means of life goes on, the degradation of the arts will go on', Art and Democracy, quoted from P. Henderson, William Morris, His Life, Work and Friends, London, 1967, p. 256.) 50 William Morris, Collected Works, vol. XXIII, pp. 150–51. 51 Loc. cit. (see Note 3), p. 18. 52 J. W. Mackail, The Life of William Morris, London, 1899, vol. II, p. 99. 53 A Report on the Eleventh French Exposition of the Products of Industry, London, 1849, p. 4. 54 Making the Best of it (lecture of c. 1878-9), Collected Works, vol. XXII, pp. 114–15. V WILLIAM MORRIS AND ARCHITECTURE Pages 108-117 I The most recent are Paul Thompson's, London, 1967, and Philip Henderson's, London, 1967. Philip Henderson also edited the letters (London, 1950). 2 Stopford Brooke, 1867, see Mary Morris: W. M. Artist, Writer, Socialist, 1936, p. 79. 3 Mackail, The Life of William Morris, London, 1899, vol. I, p. 128. 4 J. B. Glazier: W. M. and the early days of the Socialist Movement. 1921, I, 22–3. 5 Mackail, l.c., vol. I, p. 217. 6 Mackail, l.c., vol. I, p. 215-16. The lastnamed story was told me personally, I think by Mackmurdo. I made a record at the time but lost it in the war, when I lost all my prewar Morris records-and in fact nearly all my records on 19th-century architecture. 7 P. Henderson: The Letters of W. M., 1950, 77 To an unknown addressee, 1876. 8 lb., p. 160; 1882. 9 Ib., p. XIX. 14 C.W., vol. XXII, p. 300. 19 C.W., vol. XXII, p. 73. 20 Henderson, l.c., p. 11. 21 Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, I, p. 100. 22 Henderson, l.c., p. 12. 23 Seven Lamps, Library Edn., vol. VIII, p. 244: 'Do not let us talk... of restoration. The thing is a Lie from beginning to end.' 24 C.W., vol. XXII, p. 69. 25 C.W., vol. XXII, p. 296. 26 Henderson, I.c., p. 89. 27 Henderson, l.c., p. 314. 32 May Morris, l.c., vol. I, p. 266. 33 Remarks on Secular and Domestic Architecture, present and future, London, 1858, p. 171. 34 Mackail, l.c., vol. II, p. 97. 35 Henderson, l.c., p. 303. 36 W. R. Lethaby: Philip Webb and his Works, London 1935, p. 149. 52 Ib., p. 149. 53 Ib., p. 62-3. 54 Ib., p. 128-9. 55 Ib., p. 84. 56 C.W., vol. XXIII, p. 14. 58 Paris, 1879, p. 113. Very pertinent in this connection and highly interesting is a remark of the Reverend J. L. Petit quoted recently by Professor Peter Collins (The Architectural Review, CXXIX, 1961, p. 374). According to The Builder, XIX, 1861, p. 351, he said that Queen Anne is simply vernacular and, added to it, ornamentation of a specially suitable kind and he said that of Morris's Red House. So where are we? 59 London, 1940, p. 34. I don't agree with much that Blomfield wrote in this book and should therefore, in the present context, refer to a paper I wrote on Norman Shaw and which was reprinted in an amplified form in Victorian Architecture (ed. Peter Ferriday), London, 1963. 60 St James's Gazette, 17, 12, 1881. 61 It may be worth recording that the late D. S. McColl told me shortly before he died in 1948 how he had been as a very young man to a lecture or a political talk given by Morris somewhere in the East end and how, just before the entry of the speaker, in came 'Lady Burne-Jones and Oscar carrying a lily'. These were McColl's words. 62 Decoration and Furniture of Town Houses, London, 1881, p. 14-15. 63 C.W., vol. XXII, p. 327. 65 C.W., vol. XXII, p. 85. 67 Ib., p. 327. 69 Ib., p. 329. 70 Ib., p. 73. 71 Those who will not believe this assessment are referred to the letter of 1887 in which Morris calls Hans Place 'a very architectooralooral region' (Henderson, l.c., p. 265). 72 Lethaby, l.c., p. 121. 73 Ib., p. 111. 74 Ib., p. 118. 75 C.W., vol. XXII, p. 114–15. The passage is quoted in full in one of the preceding essays, p. 16–17. 76 This is the thesis of the first chapter of my Pioneers of Modern Design. 77 Henderson, l.c., p. 13. 78 Ib., p. 138. 79 C.W., vol. XXII, p. 11. 80 C.W., vol. XXIII, p. 170. 81 I am here dealing with architecture only. Otherwise there would be more to put down on the Victorian side: for instance, Morris's favourite colour-schemes (see especially C. W. vol. XXII, p. 101, etc.), his dislike of large windows, letting too much light into a room (Ib., p. 92), and also his rabid hatred of the 18th-century monuments in Westminster Abbey. 82 C. W., vol. XXII, p. 138. 91 May Morris, l.c., vol. II. G. B. Shaw's description of Morris's own house. 92 C.W., vol. XXII, p. 24. 93 Ib., P. 76. 94 Ib., P. 321. 95 Henderson, l.c., p. 236. 97 C. W., vol. XXIII, p. 95-6. 99 May Morris, l.c., vol. I. 100 Henderson, I.c., p. 242. So Morris could also appreciate the cosy snobbiness' of Dublin, Ib., p. 253, and 'the ordinary little plain Non-Conformist chapels . . . of the Thames-side country', Mackail, vol. II, p. 20. 101 C. W., vol. XXII, p. 120. 102 Ib., p. 74. 103 Ib., p. 63. 104 Ib., p. 87. 105 Ib., p. 114. 106 H. Nocq: Tendances Nouvelles, Paris, 1896, p. 46. Quoted from S. Tschudi Madsen: Sources of Art Nouveau, Oslo, 1956, p. 305. VI ART FURNITURE OF THE 1870S 1 J. W. Mackail, The Life of William Morris, World's Classics Edition, vol. I, p. 113. 2 Mackail, vol. I, p. 143. 3 Mackail, vol. I, p. 150. 4 Mackail, vol. I, p. 154–155. W. R. Lethaby, Philip Webb and his Works, London 1935, p. 37. 6 On Major Gillum see my article in The Burlington Magazine, XCV, 1953. 7 A. E. Street: Memoir of G. E. Street, 1888, p. 19; also p. 107. 8 More on Talbert will be found in the catalogues of the Victoria and Albert Museum exhibition of Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts, held in 1952. The exhibition was the work of the late Peter Floud and his devoted helpers and pupils. It remains the standard reference book on Victorian design and crafts. On Victorian furniture one should consult in addition the book by one of the Floud team, Elizabeth Aslin: Nineteenth Century English Furniture, London 1962. Also R. W. Symonds: Victorian Furniture, London 1962. 9 Gothic Forms applied to Furniture . . ., 1867, P. I. 10 Fig. 4 was illustrated before the publication of the book in Building News, 1866,. p. 136. 11 Ib., p. 4. 12 Fig. 2 comes from The Architect, 1869, P. 42. 13 On Burges see Charles Handley Read in Victorian Architecture (ed. Peter Ferriday), London 1963. 14 Furniture in Burges's Castel Coch is illustrated and discussed in W. G. Howell's article in The Architectural Review, CIX, 1951, p. 39 etc. 15 Another architect who figured with Gothic furniture in exhibitions was S. J. Nicholl who designed for Cox & Sons (see Building News, May 31, 1871), a firm which also occasionally employed Talbert (see Talbert's Examples of Ancient and Modern Furniture, 1876, Plate 47). 16 The Precious Stone, 1949. 17 Another Orient enthusiast in London was Thomas Jekyll who designed the woodwork for Whistler's Peacock Room and metal grates for Barnard's of Norwich. On the Peacock Room see now P. Ferriday in The Architectural Review, CXXVL, 1959, p. 407 etc. 18 Edis, p. 214. 19 One man who should have been mentioned in this context is the designer Dr Christopher Dresser. He was, like Godwin, connected with the Art Furniture Company (for that is what Dr S. Tschudi Madsen: Sources of Art Nouveau, Oslo 1956, p. 150 must mean by Art Furnishers' Alliance) and visited Japan in 1877. I wrote an article on Dresser for The Architectural Review, LXXXI, 1937. Since then Mrs Shirley Bury has written in Apollo, December 1962, on his designs for silver, in the same number of Apollo in which Miss Elizabeth Aslin's paper 'E. W. Godwin and the Japanese Taste' came out. 20 'Very good for furniture' (A plea for Art in the House, p. 29). 21 On Mrs Haweis see now Bea Howe, Arbiter of Elegance: Mary Eliza Haweis, London 1967. 22 The Revival of Architecture. 23 Collected Works, vol. XXII, p. 329. 24 It is different with Mrs Haweis who goes out of her way to object to the 'aesthetic folks' (1881, p. 17) and to rooms ‘all splinters and ashen tints,' presumably a mixed vision of Morris, Whistler and Godwin. 25 Incidentally they sold at 9s. 9d. for the armchair and 35s. for the long seat. This we are told on p. 27 of Decoration and Furniture of Town Houses. 26 And also such remarks as those on the desirable flatness of wall decoration (p. 8). There should, for instance, be no 'sprawling flowers' on carpets (p. 18). Mrs. Orrinsmith means the same, but she speaks of 'brilliant bunches of full-blown blossoms, convulsed scrolls and inexplicable twistings' (p. 60). 27 Especially p. 70. 28 Similarly Mrs. Haweis, who was anything but a social reformer, hastens to say that all art must be for the people (1881, p. 20). 29 Mrs. Haweis makes irritated remarks about those who sit among 'blue china and green paper. ... There are other colours in the rainbow besides green and blue' (1881, p. 17). 30 An exception was apparently the exhibit of Messrs. Collinson & Lock at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 in which the colourscheme according to Edis was of soft delicate yellow and yellowish pink walls, with pale blue woodwork, a fireplace glowing with red lustre De Morgan tiles, light pink and yellow muslin curtains and Indian matting on the floor-no doubt under WhistlerGodwin influence. 31 Collected Works, XXII, p. 92. 32 Edis mentions on p. 177 the prices of Morris wallpaper as 5s. to 12s. a piece, cottons as 2s. a yard 36 in. wide, woven hangings as 3s. to 128. a square yard, and carpets as 6s. 6d. to 10s. 6d. a square yard. 33 See my Pioneers of Modern Design, Harmondsworth 1960 (but the book was first published in 1936), p. 91; and also the essay on Mackmurdo in the present volume. VII ARTHUR H. MACKMURDO Pages 132-139 I The date is taken over from E. Pond: 'Mackmurdo Gleanings' in The Architectural Review, CXXXVIII, 1960. Other new literature referring to Mackmurdo is (in chronological order) S. Tschudi Madsen: Sources of Art Nouveau, Oslo 1956; H. Seling, ed.: Jugendstil, Heidelberg 1959; R. Schmutzler: Art Nouveau, London and New York 1962; J. Cassou, E. Langui and N. Pevsner: The Sources of Modern Art, London and New York 1962 (my part also separate as The Sources of Modern Architecture and Design, London and New York 1968); 'Mackmurdianum', a note by me in The Architectural Review, CXXXII, 1962; and S. Tschudi Madsen: Art Nouveau, London 1967. 2 It was introduced into literature by this page in its original form of 1938. 3 On the questions connected with the textiles of the late nineteenth century and of design and craft altogether during the period here under discussion see the brilliant catalogue of Peter Floud's exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, already referred to before (Victorian and Edwardian Decorative Arts, 1952). Two of these chairs, the first actual examples known, came into the possession of the William Morris Gallery at Walthamstow in 1966; but we are still no nearer to a date for them. 4 Recognized as much, by O. von Schleinitz in Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde XI, part I, 1907-8, p. 49–50. 5 A. M. Hammacher, Die Welt Henry van de Veldes, Antwerp and Cologne 1967, p. 88. VIII C. F. A. VOYSEY Pages 140-151 I On this matter and on Voysey altogether the most important contribution is John Brandon-Jones's paper in the Architectural Association Journal, May 1957. I have tried to place Devey in position in my paper on Norman Shaw (Victorian Architecture, edited by P. Ferriday, 1958) but a good deal more remains to be said about him. 2 The first published designs are in The British Architect, XXV, 1886, p. 522. On Voysey's wallpapers there is an excellent paper by the late Peter Floud, in Penrose Annual, LII, 1958. The Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects more recently (August 1965) devoted a short colour feature to them. 3 Illustrated in The Studio, I, 1893, p. 225. 4 This is now confirmed by Die Welt Henry van de Veldes, Antwerp and Cologne, 1967, p. 102, quoting van de Velde's praise of Voysey in a review of 1897 in L'Art Moderne. 5 The British Architect, XXXIII, 1890, p. 296. 6 I, p. 234. 7 Page 88. 8 Mr Brandon-Jones ended his article with a chronological index of events and designs. 9 Article on Voysey in vol. I, 1898. See also H. Muthesius, Das englische Haus, Berlin 1904-5, passim. 10 J. of Dec. Art, XV, p. 82. (1866-1926), who studied at Geneva and lived in Paris. He is known to have illustrated Les Fleurs du Mal and Pelléas et Mélisande; but I have never seen any of these paintings. However, Pelléas et Mélisande only came out in 1892, and Schwabe was only three years older than Mackintosh. Dr S. Tschudi Madsen in Sources of Art Nouveau, Oslo 1956, p. 180 shows a page from Schwabe's L'Evangile de l'Enfance de notre Seigneur, published in 1891. The main motif is a broad band of stylized irises. 7 Cf. for example Romilly Allen, Magazine of Art, 1888-9, and Margaret Stokes, South Kensington Museum Handbook, 1887. Dr Tschudi Madsen has more references to what he called the Celtic Revival. 8 Excellent illustrations are in a recent Mackintosh contribution: D. P. Bliss: Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School of Art, published by the school, 1961. 9 Professor Howarth has since drawn attention to the fact that McGibbon and Ross's classic work on ancient Scottish architecture was published in 1886. 10 Professor Dagobert Frey very kindly helped me to get this information. He received a letter from Dr Ankwicz-Kleehoven and one from Professor Josef Hoffmann. Dr Ankwicz-Kleehoven writes: 'Franz Wärndörfer... either ordered the furniture of his house in the Karl-Ludwig-Strasse [now Weimarer Strasse, at the corner of the Colloredo Gasse], or bought it at the exhibition. The house was later completely changed by Josef Hoffmann and was also furnished by him. But Mackintosh's pieces, and Margaret Macdonald-Mackintosh's magnificent relief panel have kept their place.' Josef Hoffmann writes: Wärndörfer lived for a long time in London and knew the whole movement. He asked Mackintosh for a plan, and in his house in the Hasenauergasse he made a diningroom completely in his style, the colour scheme of which was based on pale greys, pinks and violets.' Recently Professor E. Sekler has contributed some more evidence on the relationship between Wärndörfer and Mackintosh (Essays in the History of Architecture presented to Rudolf Wittkower, London 1967, pp. 239-40). Wärndörfer in a letter of April 29 1902 writes to Josef Hoffmann: 'Macsh has sent me the working drawings for the wooden fixtures', on 16 Sept. 1902 he sent Hoffmann a postcard from Glasgow, and in March 1903 he reported, again to Hoffmann, that he had received a letter from Mackintosh in connexion with the plans for the creation of the Wiener Werkstätte. Wärndörfer's Music Room is known in illustrations, see Howarth pl. 60. Another of Mackintosh's works on the Continent was pointed out to me by Sir Stanley Cursitor. He told me that in about 1914 he saw a house in Cologne that had been furnished by Mackintosh. I asked the late Professor A. E. Brinckmann if he knew about the house and if it was still there, and the answer to both questions was in the affirmative. The house is No. 7, Deutscher Ring. But Professor Brinckmann added: 'There is very little left of the interiors, and even a large part of the outside has been demolished.' The house was completely destroyed in the Second World War. II Berlin 1941. 12 It seems that some of the furniture from the Vienna exhibition was in Mackintosh's flat at 78 Southpark Avenue, Glasgow, whose furnishings are now in the collection of Glasgow University. Mrs Walton mentioned to me several pieces which were in Mackintosh's first flat in Glasgow (120 Mains Street) and some others from the Turin exhibition. It thus appears likely that Mackintosh took home with him the things he had made for the exhibitions and which were left unsold. The flat in Southpark Avenue was taken by the Mackintoshes only in 1906. 13 See Dekorative Kunst, March 1902. 14 Mackintosh was not as free as this in all his works of this period. A house at Killearn of 1906 (reproduced in Howarth, p. 110) is for example of a much more conventional 'Neo-Tudor' style. 15 Mackintosh also did the façade and the interior of his studio at 48a Glebe Place, as can still be seen. 16 These colours are also those of the Ingram Street tea-rooms. X GEORGE WALTON Pages 176-188 I See P. Ferriday: 'The Peacock Room', in The Architectural Review, CXXVI, 1959, p. 407 etc. 2 Thanks to a large series of photographs taken by Mr J. Craig Annan, the distinguished photographer and friend of Walton, a record of this early work is preserved. For most of it is gone by now, superseded by more recent decoration. The following jobs can be mentioned. Photographed in 1891: The Glen, Paisley; Sir Frederick Gardiner's house in 5 Dundonald Road, Glasgow; Mr James Gardiner's house in Grosvenor Crescent; shop of Nelson, Shaw and Macgregor, Glasgow; Thornton Lodge, Helensburgh, for the painter Whitelaw Hamilton. Photographed in 1892: Park Head House; in 1894: House at Barrhead; in 1896: Alteration to house at Lenzie for Mr Craig Annan (Illustration in an article by W. J. Warren, The Amateur Photographer, II August 1899). James Guthrie's house in Woodside Terrace, a house for Mr J. Marshall (Illustrations in an article by Hermann Muthesius, Dekorative Kunst, V, 1900) and a house at Dunblane (Illustrations H. Muthesius: Das englische Haus, vol. 3, Berlin 1905) were also furnished by Walton. 3 I was kindly shown a cash price list of April 1897 illustrated by two pictures of the Walton interior, besides the splendid Beggarstaff poster for Rowntree's Cocoa. 4 Illustrations in Academy Architecture, XIII, 1898, also Illustrated Building News, 20 January 1899, and Dekorative Kunst, V, 1900. 5 Illustrated Dekorative Kunst, 1.c. 6 Illustrations in The Architectural Review, LXXIV, 1933, p. 6 (J. Betjeman). 7 Illustrated Dekorative Kunst, XI, 1903 (article by Hermann Muthesius). Two of these also in H. Dan and E. C. Morgan Willmott's book (see Note 13). 8 Illustration Dekorative Kunst, VIII, 1901. 9 Illustrations Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration, XVI, 1905, Berliner Architekturwelt, VIII, 1905. 10 Illustrations Studio Year Book of Decorative Art, 1907. Views of The Leys are also in H. Muthesius: Das englische Haus, Berlin 1904. II Illustrations Architectural Review, LXXV, 1934 (J. Betjeman), also R. McGrath: Twentieth-Century Houses, London 1934, pp. 79– 81 and fig. 6. 12 Illustrations Studio Year Book of Decorative Art, 1910 and 1913. 13 Illustration H. Dan and E. C. Morgan Willmott: English Shopfronts Old and New, London 1907 14 Architects Journal, LXXVIII. 15 LXXIV, 1933, p. 43. Note: Photographs of most of the work mentioned in this article were presented to the Royal Institute of British Architects by Mrs Walton. From her and Edward Walton I received much help and information when I originally wrote this essay. I was also helped by the following: J. Craig Annan, John Dunlop, Mrs G. Ellis, Sir W. O. Hutchison, Sir James Morton, A. W. Paterson, Colin Rowntree, Douglas Rowntree, Messrs John Rowntree & Son, Messrs W. Rowntree & Son, Mrs P. Scott, A. Shepherd, R. Macaulay Stevenson, and J. B. B. Wellington.-N.P. XI FRANK PICK Pages 190-209 1 At the time of republishing this paper one would perhaps hesitate to make such a statement; at the time of writing it one could not. 2 And he got together the most admirable publicity department with exact photographic records of every notice, every poster, every piece of equipment, every architectural detail ever carried out. It would have been out of the question for me to compile this article without its help. I am especially grateful to Mr Carr, Mr Howells, Mr Patmore and Mr Burgess at 55 Broadway, and to Mr Graff Baker at Acton and Mr Blair at Chiswick who helped me at the time I wrote this paper, and to Mr Hope who corrected it for this revised reprinting. 3 I am following Nicolete Gray's Nineteenth Century Ornamented Types and Title Pages, London 1938. 4 I am greatly indebted to Noel Rooke, Gerard Meynell and Harold Curwen for information on the history of Johnston Sans given me, when I originally prepared this essay. 5 The importance of Charles Holden in the history of London Underground architecture makes it necessary to draw attention to his very interesting beginnings, exemplified by such buildings as King Edward II's Sanatorium near Midhurst of 1905-6 and the Bristol Municipal Library of 1906, and analyzed in an article which I wrote for The Architectural Review in 1960 (vol. CXXVIII), and alas also to his deeply disappointing later years which could not be exemplified more depressingly than by such buildings as the Students' Union, the School of Oriental and African Studies and Birkbeck College, all three for the University of London, and the General Electric building in Aldwych which is the sad successor of the Gaiety Theatre. 6 I have recently summed up the development of English architecture from 1924-1934 in Bauen und Wohnen, December 1957. XII GORDON RUSSELL Pages 210-225 I 1914, p. 39. 2 Ib., edition of 1929, p. 27. 3 See Ernest Gimson, his life and work, Stratford-on-Avon 1924. 4 See N. Pevsner: 'William Morris, C. R. Ashbee und das zwanzigste Jahrhundert', Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, XIV, 1934. English translation in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 5 I am most grateful to the late Mrs Ashbee and the late Mr George Chettle for information on C. R. Ashbee, and to the late Mr Alec Miller for having put at my disposal his yet unpublished account of Ashbee and the Campden Guild. This is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as, thanks to Miss Felicity Ashbee, much Ashbee material. 6 Copy with the Misses Wells who kindly allowed me to see their relics of the life of their father. 7 Aug. 18, p. 313; Sept. 1, p. 450; Sept. 8, pp. 500 and 501; Sept. 15, pp. 545 and 549; Sept. 22, pp. 596 and 597; Sept. 29, p. 662; Dec. 15, p. 583; Dec. 29, p. 703. 8 He is not a relation of the Broadway Russells. 9 LXIII, Jan. 20 and 27. IO Illustrated in The Architectural Review, LIX, 1926, p. 174. 11 Messrs. Heal's possess an enviably complete range of catalogues, and I had the privilege, thanks to the kindness of Mr Anthony Heal and Mr S. V. Bell, of using them for this essay. 12 Studio Yearbook, 1927, p. 95. He also still wavered in 1930 when he showed the design for the Olympia exhibition halls at the Royal Academy, with a façade heavy with Dutch memories. 13 For Schneck's work see for example Die Form, II, 1927, pp. 129, etc. 14 Marian Pepler was at the AA in 1924-9, Eden Minns in 1924–7, David Booth in 192531. (See the Class Lists at the AA.) J. M. Richards, who was also at the AA during the same years, confirmed to me this unrevolutionary atmosphere. Is The only contract work recorded was for some simple oak tables and chairs for St. Thomas's Hospital (1925-6). 16 Cf. again the sideboard C809, illustrated in Heal's catalogue of 1921. 17 So at least I was assured by the principal actors in the play. All the exhibition could do was to provide ‘a huge confirmation.' 18 Mr W. H. Russell's first independent piece was the desk No. 943. 19 No traces at all would be just a slight exaggeration; for the desk No. 947, designed by Gordon Russell, has a concave, vertically fluted drawer front which was a modish touch, and the big tripartite wardrobe designed by R. D. Russell and illustrated in the catalogue of July, 1930 (Catalogue of Furniture designed and made by Gordon Russell Ltd.), on p. 37, has a top to its centre which is stepped up in what must again be called a modish fashion. The same motif appeared in the same year, or perhaps in 1929, in the fireplace at Mr Hartley's house Follifoot, near Harrogate, also by R. D. Russell, and illustrated in the same catalogue of 1930 (p. 40). 20 The earliest modern and well-designed Italian cabinet was, according to Stile Industria, No. 11, 1957, p. 6, that designed by Figini & Pollini and made by HMV Italiana in 1934. It was the result of a competition held by Domus in 1933. On well-designed radio cabinets in Germany I have not succeeded in getting reliable information. But all seems to point to a late start too. The only other English firm to approach cabinet design-at least for a time-with the same boldness was Ekco's. Their cabinets of 1933 and 1934 were designed by Chermayeff and by Wells Coates and made of bakelite. 21 See the Aalto catalogue of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1938. 22 They were designed in 1937, not in 1935, as stated in P. Blake, Marcel Breuer, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1949, p. 56. 23 The Coxwell bedroom in oak of 1928 had sold at £30 16s. 6d. or £40 5s. (according to the dressing-table used) and the Dartington bedroom in oak of 1928 at £34 13s. 6d., but that was before the slump. 24 The same had been done by Gimson in a box illustrated in the Gimson monograph of 1924, pl. 39, No. 5. 25 The factory at Park Royal being available, similar contracts were made with Bush, Ekco, Ultra and RGD, all manufacturers of wireless cabinets. In 1939 simple but handsome stands were made for radio cabinets and sold by Murphy dealers. Their prices were remarkably low (22s. 6d., 27s. 6d., 30s.). Actually one radio table, X.802, had already been made in 1931. This was the first Gordon Russell furniture not to be handled in the Broadway and London showrooms of the company exclusively. 26 I have to thank for generous help in preparing and writing this paper, apart from Sir Gordon Russell himself, Professor R. D. Russell, Mr W. H. Russell, Mr E. T. Ould, Mr Anthony Heal and Mr A. V. Freeman. For those who want to know more about Sir Gordon Russell's life, character and views, there is now his autobiography, Designer's Trade, London, 1968. XIII THE DIA Pages 226-241 I According to Hamilton Temple Smith who was there and wrote about it in Design for Today, May 1935, and the DIA Year Book, 1951. 2 From 1905 to 1940. 3 DIA Journal, October 1918. 4 Quarterly, No. 5, p. 18. 5 Among members who by then had joined are the following. Manufacturers were specially strong in textiles (eg. the Calico Printers Association and Tootal's) and shoes (Clark's, Green's) and altogether in Leicester firms. In pottery Wedgwood's and Grimwade's had subscribed, and Siddeley (motors), Rhodes (bedding), Nairn (linoleum), the Birmingham Guild (metalwork), the Bath Cabinet Makers and Bassett-Lowke (model-making). Printers were plentiful (e.g. Bemrose, the Cambridge University Press, the Curwen Press, Maclehose, Gerard Meynell, the Oxford University Press, Percy Lund Humphries and George Pulman); so were merchants and retailers (Derry & Toms, Harrods, Horniman's tea, Oetzmann, Pettigrew & Stephens and Wylie & Lockhead of Glasgow, and Harry Trethowan of Heal's). Architects were strengthened by Greenslade, Keppie, Maufe, T. H. Mawson, L. G. Pearson, Baillie Scott, J. Simpson, Thackeray Turner and Wigglesworth, craftsmen by Muriel Barron, Dora Batty, Ann Macbeth, Douglas Strachan, Christopher Turnor and many others, designers by McKnight Kauffer and Reginald Silver, artists by Bayes, Greiffenhagen, Lavery, Rothenstein and Rutherston, Fred Taylor and Tonks, and authors and other amateurs by Collins Baker the art historian, R. B. Fishenden later editor of Penrose Annual, Holbrook Jackson, D. S. McCall, Seebohm Rowntree the sociologist, Michael Sadler, Sydney Schiff, Laurence Weaver and Perceval Yetts the sinologist. Some more art schools also joined (e.g. Reading and Sheffield). 6 Werkbund-Jahrbuch 1914, p. 87. 7 Among members who joined in 1918 and 1919 were T. D. (Sir Thomas) Barlow, Donald Bros., Major Longden, Francis Meynell of the Nonesuch Press; R. H. Tawney the great economist, Turnbull of Turnbull & Stockdale who were to follow Foxton's into modern designing for cheap cotton fabrics, and (Sir) Charles Tennyson. 8 Journal, July 1917. 9 Journal, January 1918. 10 At one London meeting Professor William Rothenstein of Sheffield University spoke and assured his audience that 'machinery has become a magnificent thing'-see Journal, January 1918. He did not think so any longer when he was principal of the Royal College of Art. II November 1916. |