Arts & Crafts
William Morris was born on 24 March 1834 at Elm House, Walthamstow,
London. In 1852 he entered Exeter College, Oxford, where he acquired an
interest in the Middle Ages and its art. Together with Burne-Jones, he also
studied English Gothic, theology, and medieval poetry.
After a trip to France to see the splendour of the French Gothic cathedrals, he
decided to become an architect. In 1858, at Oxford, he painted The Defense
of Guenevere, the only known canvas to bear his signature. His talents,
however, inclined toward the decorative arts, and he designed and created
stained glass, wallpaper, rugs, and textiles, often in collaboration with Walter
Crane.
Among his varied pursuits he designed printing typefaces and ornaments.
But William Morris must be considered, first and foremost, an innovator in the
industrial arts; in the field of textile design, he was pre-eminent. His art work
for books, too, was notable. In a totally different direction, he was universally
acclaimed for his efforts as initiator of press reforms
Morris died in Hammersmith, London on 3 October 1896.
C.R. Ashbee was born in London in 1863. A leading member of the Arts &
Crafts movement, he received an architectural education at King's College.
Ashbee apprenticed at Bodley & Garner, a firm that specialized in Gothic
Revival architecture. His commitment to the Arts & Crafts movement occurred
as a result of his work with this firm.
In 1888 Ashbee founded the Guild and School of Handicraft in the East End
of London. At this school students were trained in the Arts & Crafts tradition
with particular emphasis on furniture design.
Ashbee's work shows the spareness and restraint typical of the Arts & Crafts
movement. In addition to his own designs, he is notable for drawing attention
to the work of the Greene brothers and to Frank Lloyd Wright in America.
He also wrote an essay Should We Stop Teaching Art? that drew attention to
the changing nature of industrial patronage and client organization.
The Red House, at Bexleyheath, in Kent, England, 1859.
Philip Webb was born in Oxford, England in 1831. Webb studied at Aynho in
Northamptonshire and was articled to a firm of builder-architects in Reading.
He moved to London where he eventually became a junior assistant for G. E.
Street. He met William Morris while with G. E. Street and was commissioned
to design a house for him.
Webb only worked on one commission at a time. He believed that to design
properly one must "enter the spirit and object of building as entirely as
possible". In his designs Webb used Gothic Revival styles for nonreligious
purposes.
For most of his life, Webb acted as chief technical adviser and instructor to
the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Although he designed only
a few buildings, they were highly influential on the new Arts & Crafts
movement.
Webb died in Sussex, England in 1915.
Bedford Park, at Bedford Park, London, England, 1875 and onward.
Leyswood House, at Groombridge, Sussex, England, 1866 to 1869.
Craigside, at Rothbury, Northumberland, England, 1870 to 1885.
Adcote, at Shropshire, England, 1876 to 1881.
Lowther Lodge, at Kensington Gore, London, England, 1873 to 1875.
Old Swan House, at 17 Chelsea Embankment, London, Englnad, 1875 to
1877.
St. Michael and All Angels Church, Bedford Park, London, England, 1879
to 1882.
Albert Hall Mansions, at Kensington Gore, London, England, 1879 to 1886.
Savoy Theatre, at London, England, 1881.
New Scotland Yard, at London, England, 1887 to 1907.
Piccadilly Hotel, Picadilly Circus, London, England, 1905 to 1908.
Richard Norman Shaw
"Richard Norman Shaw was the most influential and successful of all Late
Victorian architects in Great Britain..."
Randall J. Van Vunckt,
Shaw was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1831. He studied in Edinburgh after
which he worked for William Burn, an Edinburgh architect with an office in
London. In 1858 he worked for G. E. Street and in 1863 he opened his own
practice with W. E. Nesfield as his partner. He designed several country
houses, as well as a series of commercial buildings in a wide range of styles.
Shaw's early works are in a romantic vernacular Old English style, drawn from
the Weald of Sussex. Later and in town he tended to use the more reserved
Queen Anne, as well as Gothic and Renaissance in churches, and later still
more classical, to Edwardian neo-Baroque.
A Royal Academician from 1877, Shaw co-edited the 1892 collection of
essays "Architecture, a Profession or an Art?" In later years, Shaw moved to a
heavier classical style which influenced the emerging Edwardian classicism of
the early twentieth century.
Shaw died in London, England in 1913.
The Dutch painter Georges Joseph Van Sluyters was known in France under
the pseudonym Georges de Feure. Drawn at first to the art of advertising
posters, de Feure painted Symbolist compositions of Baudelairian inspiration
on the theme of woman, and showed them at the Rose+Croix Salons. Around
1900 he turned to the decorative arts. His contributions to Bing's Art Nouveau
pavilion at the Universal Exposition of 1900 were much admired. Gifted with a
highly inventive mind, he was as skillful at designing airplanes as theatre sets
and costumes.
