Arts & Craft Style NZ

“One person with a belief is equal to the force of 99 who only have interests.”

- John Stuart Mill

William Morris	John Ruskin	Ambrose Heal
Arthur Liberty	Augustus Pugin	Charles Voysey
Charles Rennie Mackintosh	Charles Ashbee	Christopher Dresser
Edward Burne-Jones	Edward Lutyens	Gertrude Jekyll
Gustav Klimpt	John Dearle	McKay Baillie-Scott
Margaret Mackintosh	Phillip Webb	Thomas Wardle
Walter Crane	William De Morgan	Alphonse Mucha
Dante Gabriel Rossetti	Ford Maddox Brown	Edward William Godwin
William Arthur Smith Benson	Archibald Knox	Clarice Cliff

A selection of significant figures

aWilliam Morris (1834-1896)

long with John Ruskin the founding father of the Arts and Crafts movement. (Gallery Link)

Born to wealthy parents he attended Marlborough College where he acquired a love of the landscape and medieval architecture. Originally intended entering the church, he devastated his mother when he announced he was giving this up in favour of a career in architecture, and entered the office of G.E Street in 1856. He later abandoned architecture in favour of art when he met Dante Gabriel Rossetti who was later to become the lover of Morris’s wife Jane Burden who he married in 1858, and who became the iconic symbol of medieval womanhood portrayed in many of Rossetti’s Pre-Raphaelite movement paintings.

William Morris was a man of prodigious talent and with an extraordinary capacity for hard work. He ranks as one of the truly great flat pattern fabric, wallpaper and textile designers in history. Founding the firm of Morris & Co many of his original designs can be seen today still being produced and in demand, over a century after his death.

A talented poet and writer, he was at one time among England’s most favourite poets and turned down the opportunity to become Poet Laureate.

His phenomenal talent extended through to Calligraphy, manuscript illumination, and type design, which he perfected and displayed through many of his books of poetry and stories of Nordic mythology, a later passion in his life which he showcased through the Kelmscott Press, a printing company he founded to publish these works.

aJohn Ruskin (1819-1900)

ainter, writer, poet, critic, and founded the Arts and Crafts movement with William Morris. Born 8th February 1819 in London, he was the only child of Margaret and John James Ruskin. His father was a prosperous self-made man who founded a sherry business and also collected art. He encouraged his son’s literary work. His mother was a devout evangelical Protestant who from an early age dedicated herself the young Ruskin hoping he might become an Anglican bishop. Ruskin was home educated until twelve years of age, rarely associating with other children and had few toys. His parents took him abroad to the continent many times, and this may have shaped Ruskin’s acute perception of the world around him early in his life. He published his first poem at the age of eleven, and four years later his first prose work regarding the waters of the Rhine.

In 1836 he entered Christ Church as a gentlemen-commoner. During his time there he associated with a wealthy and often rowdy set but continued to publish poetry and criticism, at one time writing a pamphlet to defend the painter Turner against the periodical critics.

In 1842 he abandoned the idea of entering the ministry, and began his first volume of Modern Painters after reviewers of the annual Royal Academy had again savaged Turner. In 1848 he married Euphemia Chalmers Gray, and the following year he published The Seven Lamps of Architecture, after which he and his wife set out for Venice. In 1851 he made the acquaintance of the Pre-Raphaelite painters a meeting which was to change the course of his life and history, forever. In later life he was dogged by ill-health and bouts of madness, eventually recovering and delivered lectures and continuing publishing his work. He died 20th January 1900.

aAmbrose Heal (1872-1959)

ir Ambrose Heal was born at Crouch End. His family’s firm, Heal and Sons, was a furnishing company on Tottenham Court Road. At a young age Ambrose was keenly interested in Design, and embraced the Arts and Crafts movement. After spending an apprenticeship with Messrs Plucknett of Warwick, he obtained a post with a mass production furniture manufacturer in London “but left before lunch, disgusted with the level of workmanship and design.” His furniture design attempted to follow the philosophy of Ruskin and Morris, but tried to bring a high level of craftsmanship within the reach of middle class families. Prior to the turn of the twentieth century, Heal had merged his two ideals; commercial sales and Arts and Crafts design. He did this by embracing the knowledge that in order to expand the company’s sales it would be necessary to introduce an element of mass production. He had the vision to see that the simple construction and plain ornament so integral to the style was perfectly suited to mass production, and enabled Heals and Sons to move to producing a distinctive style of well made furniture. This new style adapted by Ambrose himself, born of good quality and solid design, then largely resolved the problem the purist Arts and Crafts producers were facing: their hand made furniture designed for the common man, was priced out of the common man’s reach.

By many craftsmen of the time he was distrusted and envied because he ran an efficient business and they referred to him as “the long haired chap with the odd notions.” He was also constantly criticised however Heal stuck to his principles. His outlook was Arts and Crafts furniture was not just a fashion of the moment, it was a far deeper-felt way of life to him and effected everything he did. Through this honesty and sincerity he built a devoted clientele.

Even after the slaughter of the First World War where he lost his eldest son killed in Belgium, Heal continued to produce what he described as “good citizens furniture” forging a link between the craftsman and the machine that few others have been able to achieve.

Between the wars the success of Heal’s furniture was due to the hard work and dedication of an exceptional team of designers and makers headed by Heal himself.

By the time the “Better Furniture for Better Times” range was launched in 1934 the company had a mailing list of close to 35,000 people.

He was knighted for services to furniture in 1933. His other interests included typography, and collecting tradesman’s cards of the 18th century.

aArthur Lazenby Liberty (1843-1917)

he son of a draper, he was born in Chesham. After a brief period in schooling he was employed in a draper’s in Baker Street, London. On completion of his training he moved to Farmer & Rodger’s Cloak and Shawl Emporium in Regent Street where in 1862 he was appointed manager. Ten years later he took up the opportunity to purchase the business, and raised a 1,500 pound loan from his wife’s grandfather to float the business which he called East India House at 21a Regent Street. He initially concentrated on selling products made from Japan, but later he imported goods from the then Persia. He also began producing his own range of Liberty silks. Most of the imported goods were over stamped with the Liberty label.

Liberty gradually expanded the business and by the 1880’s his shop had seven departments: Silks, Embroideries, Furniture, Carpets, Porcelain, Curios, and Miscellaneous items.

At this time he also ran another shop in Regent Street which concentrated on Japanese and Chinese Antiques. Demand for his goods grew to such an extent he opened yet another store in Birmingham. Later still another in Paris in 1890 called Maison Liberty which was subsequently relocated to a more exclusive area and grander premises at 3 boulevard des Capucines, this closed in 1932.

During his business life he employed some of the best designers of the period, among them Voysey, Knox, Gaskin, Cuzner, Baker, and Jessie King. While most of the goods he sold were machine made there was a hand finished content in them which he marketed extremely well. He also accepted commissions for re-decorating the wealthy and famous, and when he died in 1917 he left over 350,000 pounds.

aAugustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812-1852)

ugustus Pugin was born in London, the son of a French draughtsman.

He made a great many sketches for architectural publications, mainly of Gothic architecture which was to become the passion of his short life.

In his teens he designed furniture for Windsor Castle and was soon operating his own business. He wrote several books on architecture which exerted a strong influence on the Gothic architecture designed throughout the Victorian period, and also strongly influenced John Ruskin and some of the other early workers in the Arts and Crafts movement.

A keen sailor, he was once reported as saying “There is nothing worth living for but Christian architecture and a boat.”

aCharles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941)

nglish architect and one of the most prolific designer of the Arts and Crafts period.

Educated at Dulwich College he later worked for the architect J.P Seddon and then for George Devey.

He joined the Art Workers’ Guild in 1884 and quickly established himself as a designer of furniture and wallpapers before receiving his early building commissions around the 1890. A master of “artistic” cottages and country houses and although he never designed the aristocratic mansions of Edward Lutyens, he remained enthusiastic about reinstating architecture as “the mother of all arts”.

Voysey was known for his rigorous attention to detail and he often designed every element in a house, from the letterplate on the front door to interior fittings!

His designs were characterised by plain good quality materials made to high standards. His wallpaper designs were sold through Essex & Co. and his fabrics were designed for Alexander Morton & Co. and Liberty & Co.

His influence extended to Europe where his designs were often reproduced and his influence considered great.

aCharles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928)

he second son of a family of eleven his father instilled in Mackintosh a deep appreciation of Scotland’s cultural heritage and a love of horticulture.

He was articled to John Hutchison and left at the end of his apprenticeship in 1889 to join the newly founded firm of Honeyman & Keppie as a draftsman. He attended the Glasgow School of Art evening classes from 1884 where he met his future wife Margaret and her sister Frances Macdonald, and together with Herbert MacNair they formed “the Glasgow Four”. They pioneered Art Nouveau designs and were invited to send their works to The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1896. He was extremely influential in Europe and the USA, but for some reason recognition in Glasgow his home town was slow to come until in 1896 he won the competition to design the Glasgow School of Art building which together with his design work for the Glasgow Tea Room entrepreneur Catherine Cranston, became his best known work in the city.

Despite his undoubted originality, he had a reputation for unreliability, eccentricity and drinking, and this eventually brought about his professional decline.

aCharles Robert Ashbee (1863-1942)

leading member of the Arts and Crafts movement he received an architectural education at Kings College. Ashbee apprenticed at Bodley & Garner, a firm that specialised in Gothic Revival architecture. His commitment to the Arts and Crafts movement occurred as a result of his work with this firm.

He initiated classes in 1888 at the Guild of Handicraft. The guild is now chiefly known for the metalwork and jewellery designed by Ashbee himself, and for the furniture made for the Grand Duke of Hesse in collaboration with the designer M.H.Baillie Scott in the workshops at the Essex House in the Mile End Road.

aChristopher Dresser (1834-1904)

orn in Glasgow, Christopher Dresser was a Scottish pioneer of product design.

Highly prolific, radical, and regarded as ahead of his time, he has been attributed with raising the status of product design to an art form.

Originally trained as a botanist, he criticised John Ruskin in his book The Art of Decorative Design (1862) arguing as a scientist that design should represent the laws of natural growth, not its appearance.
Dresser worked in a wide range of materials, styles and technique designing ceramics, metalwork, glass, carpets, furniture, textiles, wallpaper and other interior decoration.

Although highly talented this did not appear to transpose itself to his business activities and a number of design based business ventures he floated failed.

He later died in relative obscurity in France.

aEdward Colley Burne-Jones (1833-1898)

orn August 28th 1833 and raised by his father, a gilder and frame maker after his mother died within days of his birth, he was chiefly associated with the second generation of Pre-Raphaelites. He worked closely with, and remained life long friends with the designer William Morris whom he met while attending Oxford. They later shared rooms in London at 17 Red Lion Square. Burne-Jones was responsible for most of the illustration work on Morris’ stained glass windows, and the birds and animals in Morris & Co fabric designs and textiles, especially after the reconstitution of the firm in 1875. He also illustrated many of the volumes produced by Morris and The Kelmscott Press, a fine example being the folio Chaucer 1896.

Apart from a few informal lessons from Rossetti, whom he met 1856, Burne-Jones was entirely a self taught artist who enjoyed great acclaim during his lifetime eventually culminating in a Knighthood in 1894.

aEdwin Landseer Lutyens (1869-1943)

Edward Lutyens dwin Lutyens was born in London in 1869 in the reign of Queen Victoria, he lived into that of George IV. Osbert Sitwell described him ‘ in the same way that I should classify Elgar, as essentially Edwardian; that decade of freedom and prosperity was most surely his home. During his working life from 1889 until his death he dominated English architecture.

This period saw him amass over 500 commissions ranging from tombs, cottages and large country houses to the government building of Imperial New Dehli.

In 1887 he became a pupil of, and studied with, Ernest George until he established his own practice. At this time he also met Gertrude Jekyll with whom he was to collaborate on the landscape portion of many of his commissions. Jekyll was able to assist Lutyens through her social connections to accumulate many of his commissions.

Lutyens was knighted in 1918, received the Gold Medal of the RIBA and was made President of the Royal Academy in 1938.

aGertrude Jekyll (1843-1932)

orn in London to a wealthy family, at eighteen she attended the South Kensington School of Art and was later become a leading English garden designer.

She met John Ruskin and William Morris in 1869 and turned to embroidery, designing patterns that were heavily influenced by Morris.

She brought this mastery of colour theory and artistic talent to the gardens she began designing in her thirties when failing eyesight began to effect her. She moved with her mother to Munstead Heath in Surrey and at the age of forty-six she formed a very successful partnership with the then twenty year old Edward Lutyens. Together they collaborated on more than a hundred British gardens and houses.

aGustav Klimpt (1862-1918)

orn July 14th in Baumgarten, a Viennese suburb his father an immigrant from Bohemia, failed in his occupation as a gold engraver, and the family then lived in utter poverty.

When he was just 14 he quit school but managed to enrol in a local college of art and craft. While there his artistic abilities were recognised and he was encouraged to develop them. He applied for and gained a place at the Kunstgewerbeschule (Arts and Crafts school), one of two Viennese public art schools. He was so talented that he began earning a living from commissions while still a pupil. He the formed a partnership with his brother Ernst and another student, Franz Matsch. Up until the 1890’s, Klimt-Matsch & Co were getting rich on commissions for new buildings being constructed.

Klimt’s erotic art created a furore in his time, and for much of his creative years he was dogged by scandal and criticism which he viewed as an attack on his artistic integrity. This criticism largely due to his depiction of the female form as “voyeuristic notions that exist for the spectator.”

Klimt progressed through various stages of creativity, the driving force behind his life.

Despite the scandal that surrounded his work he was undoubtedly a very talented painter and early in his career he wanted to be seen as a painter of architectural decorations.

He died of pneumonia in 1918.

aJohn Henry Dearle (1860-1932)

earle began working as an assistant in Morris & Co.’s Queens Square, London shop in 1878. His artistic talent was soon recognised by Morris as he was “influenced by the evident intelligence and brightness of the boy.” He was trained as a tapestry weaver.

By 1887 Dearle had produced his first tapestry design and by 1890 he had become the firm’s chief designer, working on woven and printed textiles, carpets and embroideries as well as tapestries. After Morris’s death in 1896 he became art director. His son Duncan also worked for the firm and was a director up until the time of its closure in 1940. No doubt due to Morris’s influence on him during his apprenticeship Dearle’s style mirrored Morris’s own so closely that many of his designs were and are today still mistaken for Morris’s own designs. Among just a few of Dearle’s designs are: Cross twigs, Diagonal Trail, Elmcote, Ispahan, Millefleurs, Rose and Lily, and Golden Stem, Persian Brocatel and Daffodil which was to become one of the firm’s most popular fabrics.

aMackay Hugh Baillie Scott (1864-1945)

nfluential English architect.

He was articled to Major Charles Davis, the Bath city architect in 1886.

Following his marriage in 1889, he moved to the Isle of Man where he met the designer Archibald Knox. Together they collaborated on designs for stained glass, iron grates, and copper fireplace hoods which were then installed in the houses Baillie Scott built on the island. From 1898 he designed furniture for John P.White at the Pyghtle Works, Bedford, and a catalogue of 1901 shows 120 of his pieces. His furniture was also sold through Liberty’s. He left the Isle of Man in 1901 and moved to Bedford where his architectural practice flourished. He continued working until 1939.

aMargaret Mackintosh (1864-1933)

argaret Mackintosh (nee Macdonald) was one of the most gifted and successful women artists in Scotland at the turn of the twentieth century. Born in England she came to Glasgow with her family around 1890. She enrolled as a day student at the Glasgow School of Art in 1900 where she met and married Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Together with Charles, Herbert McNair, and her sister Frances, they formed the Glasgow Four.

Her work was wide ranging and included water colours, graphics, metalwork and textiles. Her greatest achievements however were to be in the area of design and production of gesso, a plaster-based medium, which she used to make decorative panels for furniture and interiors. Collaboration was the key to Margaret’s creativity. The partnership produced metalwork, graphics, and a series of book illustrations, as well as decorative symbolic interiors, notably The Hill House, and The Willow Tea Rooms.

Their marriage was blessed with a long harmonious and artistic collaboration but no children. Ill health, and the strain of Mackintosh’s declining career contributed to a decline in her own output, and work after 1921 is unknown. She died in London in 1933, five years after her husband.

aPhilip Speakman Webb ( 1831-1915)

nglish architect, socialist and designer.

Born at Oxford, the son of a doctor and grandson of the medallist, Thomas Webb. Entered the Oxford of G.E.Street where he was joined in 1856 by William Morris, who was to become a life long friend and for whom he designed and built The Red House in Upton, Kent which has been called the first Arts and Crafts house as his first commission on starting his practice.

A life-long socialist, he had a reputation for shyness and highmindedness and standards.

He designed furniture for Morris and for Dante Gabriel Rossetti as well as for Morris & Co. Webb never took articled pupils into his practice, but employed one or even sometimes two assistants. In the early 1880’s the position was taken by George Jack, who carried out a number of Webb’s designs after he effectively retired from the practice in 1900. Webb designed Morris’ gravestone, and his last commission was the memorial cottages to Morris at Kelmscott.

For the last fifteen years of his life he lived contendedly in the country, having abandoned architecture at the onset of the “concrete age”, with which he could feel no affinity.

aThomas Wardle (1831-1908)

n 1881 Thomas Wardle, son of the silk dyer Joshua Wardle set up Wardle & Co.

The firm dyed silk threads for embroidery and yarns for woven textiles and velvets.

Between 1875 and 1877 Wardle was printing fourteen designs for Morris & Co., but by 1881 Morris, ever the perfectionist, was dissatisfied with quality produced and moved all his printing to his own works at Merton Abbey. Wardle also imported Indian silks for dyeing and brought designs directly from Lewis F. Day, Crane, Voysey and Solon. They also supplied many retailers including Liberty & Co., Debenham & Freebody, Story’s, and Heal’s. Wardle was a founding member of the Silk Association and his wife Elizabeth Wardle founded the Leek Embroidery Society.

aWalter Crane (1845-1915)

orn Liverpool August 15th, and son of portrait painter Thomas Crane, he spent his youth on the south coast and in London, where he was apprenticed to W.J.Linton, the engraver.

Artist, muralist, illustrator of children’s books, designer of wallpapers, textiles and tiles, frieze painter, mosaicist, writer, and ceramic designer for Wedgewood. He was a socialist friend of William Morris and like Morris he believed “the root and basis of all art lies in handicrafts.” His first painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy at the age of seventeen. Crane was most famous for his illustrations of nursery books and this lead to him being approached to produce designs for nursery wallpapers. He joined the Socialist League in 1883 and later the Fabian Society. In 1888 he was instrumental in the establishment of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, of which he was the first President. Crane wrote important books on design and decoration, including The Decorative Illustration of Books (1896) and Line and Form (1900).

Appointed Director of Design at the Manchester School of Art form 1893-6 and Principal of the Royal College of Art from 1897-8, continuing to be a member of the governing council of that body thereafter and a strong supporter of Government sponsored art education. He will be remembered as one of the most important of all the children’s book illustrators.

aWilliam De Morgan (1839-1917)

illiam De Morgan is acknowledged as the most important and innovative potter of the 19th century. His distinctive style and glorious lustres are instantly recognisable.

He met William Morris in 1836 when he was 24, and they remained lifelong friends and central figures in the Arts and Crafts movement, sharing a love for everything medieval, a sense of humour, and a hunger for knowledge especially about their chosen field.

It was at Morris’ suggestion he gave up his training in fine art and began designing stained glass. He also designed ceramic tiles and painted furniture for Morris & Co between 1863-1872, however he wanted more control over the finishing of his work so set up a kiln in the basement of his home in Fitzroy Square, London.

He later moved to Chelsea to expand the business to include a showroom and two painters. His fane grew and in 1882 De Morgan moved to Merton Abbey on the river Wandle, close to Morris’ works and the Liberty silk dyeing works.

Whereas some of De Morgan’s flowery designs are reminiscent of Morris, his animals are distinctly his own. They are partly drawn from his detailed knowledge of medieval illustrated manuscripts and partly from vivid imagination. He and Burne-Jones used to amuse themselves by drawing fantastic imaginery creatures, and it has been suggested Lewis Carroll commissioned him to design a series of tiles to illustrate his famous poem The Hunting of the Snark. It is among these designs he shows his special brand of humour.

aAlphonse Mucha (1860 - 1939)

lphonse Mucha was born in 1860 in Ivancice, Moravia, which is near the city of Brno in the modern Czech Republic. It was a small town, and for all intents and purposes life was closer to the 18th than the 19th century. Though Mucha is supposed to have started drawing before he was walking, his early years were spent as a choirboy and amateur musician. It wasn't until he finished high school (needing two extra years to accomplish that onerous task) that he came to realize that living people were responsible for some of the art he admired in the local churches. That epiphany made him determined to become a painter, despite his father's efforts in securing him "respectable" employment as a clerk in the local court.

Like every aspiring artist of the day, Mucha ended up in Paris in 1887. He was a little older than many of his fellows, but he had come further in both distance and time. A chance encounter in Moravia had provided him with a patron who was willing to fund his studies. After two years in Munich and some time devoted to painting murals for his patron, he was sent off to Paris where he studied at the Academie Julian. After two years the supporting funds were discontinued and Alphonse Mucha was set adrift in a Paris that he would soon transform. At the time, however, he was a 27 year old with no money and no prospects - the proverbial starving artist.

For five years he played the part to perfection. Living above a Cremerie that catered to art students, drawing illustrations for popular (ie. low-paying) magazines, getting deathly ill and living on lentils and borrowed money, Mucha met all the criteria. It was everything an artist's life was supposed to be.

Some success, some failure. Friends abounded and art flourished. It was the height of Impressionism and the beginnings of the Symbolists and Decadents. He shared a studio with Gauguin for a bit after his first trip to the south seas.

Mucha gave impromptu art lessons in the Cremerie and helped start a traditional artists ball, Bal des Quat'z Arts. All the while he was formulating his own theories and precepts of what he wanted his art to be.

On January 1, 1895, he presented his new style to the citizens of Paris. Called upon over the Christmas holidays to created a poster for Sarah Bernhardt's play, Gismonda, he put his precepts to the test. The poster, was the declaration of his new art. Spurning the bright colors and the more squarish shape of the more popular poster artists, the near life-size design was a sensation! Art Nouveau ("New Art" in French) can trace it's beginnings to about this time.

Based on precepts akin to William Morris' Arts and Crafts movement in England, the attempt was to eradicate the dividing line between art and audience.

Everything could and should be art. Burne-Jones designed wallpaper, Hector Guimard designed metro stations, and Mucha designed champagne advertising and stage sets. Each country had its own name for the new approach and artists of incredible skill and vision flocked to the movement. .Overnight, Mucha's name became a household word and, though his name is often used synonymously with the new movement in art, he disavowed the connection. Like Sinatra, he merely did it "my way." His way was based on a strong composition, sensuous curves derived from nature, refined decorative elements and natural colors. The Art Nouveau precepts were used, too, but never at the expense of his vision. Bernhardt signed him to a six year contract to design her posters and sets and costumes for her plays. Mucha was an overnight success at the age of 34, after seven years of hard work in Paris.

Commissions poured in. By 1898, he had moved to a new studio, illustrated Ilsee, Princess de Tripoli, and had his first one-man show and had also begun publishing graphics with Champenois, a new printer anxious to promote his work with postcards and panneaux - sets of four large images around a central theme (four seasons, four times of day, four flowers, etc. Most of these sets were created for the collector market and printed on silk.

There was a World's Fair in Paris in 1900 and Mucha designed the Bosnia-Hercegovina Pavilion. He partnered with goldsmith Georges Fouquet in the creation of jewelry based on his designs. The bronze, Nature is from this time period. He also published Documents Decoratifs and announced Figures Decoratives. Documents Decoratifs was his attempt to pass his artistic theories on to the next generation. In actuality, it provided a set of blueprints to Mucha's style and his imitators wasted no time in applying them.

His fame spread around the world and several trips to America and resulted in covers and illustrations in a variety of U.S. magazines. Portraiture was also commissioned from U.S. patrons. At the end of the decade he was prepared to begin what he considered his life's work. Mucha was always a patriot of his Czech homeland and considered his success a triumph for the Czech people as much as for himself. In 1909 he was commissioned to paint a series of murals for the Lord Mayor's Hall in Prague. He also began to plan out "The Slav Epic" - a series of great paintings chronicling major events in the Slav nation. Financing was provided by Charles Crane, a Chicago millionaire. Mucha had hoped to complete the task in five or six years, but instead it embraced 18 years of his life. Twenty massive (about 24 x 30 feet) canvasses were created and presented to the city of Prague in 1928. Covering the history of the Slavic people from prehistory to the nineteenth century, they represented Mucha's hopes and dreams for his homeland. In 1919 the first eleven canvases were completed and exhibited in Prague, and America where they received a much warmer welcome.

History hasn't been kind to either Mucha or to the Czechs - as the current unrest in the area at the turn of this century shows. Mucha's bequest to his country was received with unkindly cold shoulders. The geopolitical world ten years after World War I was very different from the one in which Mucha had begun his project. Moravia was now a part of a new nation, Czechoslovakia (Mucha offered to help the new country by designing its postage stamps and bank notes). The art world was just as changed. And just as the proponents of "Modern Art" cast their slings and arrows at the oh-so 19th century style, varying political groups brought out their personal arsenals of vitriolic prejudice in damning one aspect or other of Mucha's work. The public seemed to appreciate them, but political agendas seldom give much weight to public opinion. Only recently have they been made available again. They are on permanent display in the castle at Morovsky Krumlov. Brian Yoder of the Art Renewal Center saw them when he visited the CzechRepublic in 2001 (he says they are quite remarkable!). He says "the castle has certainly seen better days and the location is not ideal (for example it is unheated in the winter and is closed to the public during those months)."

But at least the public, the appreciative and constant public, can view these masterpieces again.

The rest of Mucha's life was spent almost as an anachronism. His work was still beautiful and popular, it just was no longer "new" - a heinous crime in the eyes of the critics. When the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia, he was still influential enough to be one of the first people they arrested. He returned home after a Gestapo questioning session and died shortly thereafter on July 14, 1939.

aDante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

ante Gabriel Rossetti was born in the same year as Jules Verne, another Utopian novelist like friend William Morris . Like Lord Byron, they loved the medievalism of Walter Scott's writing, and the image of another 'more natural' era, like the world in which Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) populated. Before moving permanently to England, Rossetti's father worked as composer Rossini's librettist. In England he taught and worked as a Dante scholar, marrying the much younger Frances Polidori, niece of Dr. John Polidori (who later wrote The Vampyre). He was Lord Byron's companion during his exile from England in 1816. The elder Rossetti was a Dante scholar who raised his children with a high-minded classical sense-- they all went on to become published writers, the most famous being Gabriel and his poet sister Christina.

Though of Italian descent, Rossetti was really more the Englishman and never even visited Italy in his lifetime. Yet later his paintings had a Mediterranean quality that made his illustrations of myths so rich-- the richly symbolic paintings really seemed to come from another period of time, back when Greece and Rome held supreme, before the pan-European cultural advancements of the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. Yet Rossetti was a good Protestant. His one moral painting (Found) was of a whore outside a church yard, huddled and in trouble. A young farmer has come into town to sell his calf and sees her. He recognizes her as his former fiancee' and tries to help her, but she shoos him away. Meanwhile the calf in the back of his wagon is struggling for its life against the net it's bound in.

After college, Rossetti apprenticed himself to Ford Madox Brown, (link) but grew tired of the still life exercises Brown gave him. He next apprenticed himself to the livelier William Holman Hunt, remaining friends with Brown. All three shared a Medieval sensibility.

In 1848 the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was officially founded (Rossetti's paintings possessed the enigmatic PRB initials, which drew both praise and criticism). Through fellow artist Ned Burne-Jones (link) his circle grew to embrace William Morris, who would become the subject for many of his amusing cartoons.

He was quick to parody others, though he was sensitive to criticism. Initially, the Pre-Raphaelite artwork was attacked by critics as pretentious-- what with those cryptic little PRB initials and all. Respected writer John Ruskin (link) came to their defense, and in turn became a Pre-Raphaelite friend for life (and one could say they were a friend to him, since John Everett Millais later 'relieved' him of his burdensome wife, a marriage that hadn't been consummated; so it was annulled and she married Millais, going on to having a brood of children with him).

Rossetti met and eventually married the delicately beautiful Lizzie Siddal, a wonderful, little known artist whose work he encouraged. She was a favorite model for all the Pre-Raphaelites, but soon became exclusively Rossetti's-- and more. Soon they were living and working together, inspiring each other.

Though he'd been seeing Lizzie longer than Morris had been seeing his "stunner" model-girlfriend Jane, it was Morris who first married. Rossetti soon followed suit. The Morris' had two daughters. When Lizzie finally gave birth to a daughter, it was stillborn. Lizzie died soon thereafter of a drug overdose. The grieving husband threw the poems he'd been working on into her casket. Oddly, his sister Christina had already written a poem about this event.

Years later, in an event that caused quite a sensation, Rossetti had Lizzie's body exhumed so that he could retrieve the poems. He had his friends perform the dirty deed. The poems were found relatively intact. After they'd been drenched in disinfectant, Rossetti was able to read most of them and could recreate what he couldn't read. His friends also told him, in some sort of appeasement for this ghastly act of selfishness, that Lizzie looked remarkably well.

Rossetti published them together with the ones he'd been working on about Jane, William Morris' wife. Rossetti was madly in love with her, and for a long time she was his muse in both words and on the canvas (though they were said to sit silently, heads huddled together, for hours). Some of his most beautiful, richly colored paintings are inspired by her: La Pia De' Tolomei, Mariana (with Jane's daughter May), La Donna Della Fiamma, and the famous Prosperine. Rossetti moved into the Morris mansion and was there alone with her when her husband took his trips to Iceland (Morris' "holy land").

The book, Poems, was a great success. But it also received the infamous criticism by Robert Buchanan in an essay called "The Fleshly School of Poetry." In the Victorian era, the Freudian ideas of sexuality had just been introduced. Unlike friend Ruskin, who'd been shocked on his wedding night to find out his wife had pubic hair, Rossetti was a man of the world. He counter-attacked with the essay "The Stealthy School of Criticism."

Rossetti moved to feminist Barbara Bodichon's country house where he could escape the scrutiny of the critics in the city. Jane visited him there and remained with her two daughters for months, until his ether abuse became apparent. Concerned for her daughter's welfare, and no doubt tired of the relationship herself, Jane reunited with her husband and the two effectively cut themselves off from Rossetti.

He resumed his relationship with the earthy Fanny Cornforth; she'd been the model for the moral painting (mentioned above). His ether addiction worried even him. In a letter to his brother William, who referred sadly to these as Gabriel's "chloralized years," wrote that he hoped people wouldn't find out about his ether use. He was afraid that then his art would be discredited.

On Easter Sunday, 1882, he died at the country house of a friend, where he'd gone in yet another vain attempt to recover his health, which had been destroyed by the chloral as his wife's had been destroyed by laudanum.

aFord Maddox Brown (1821 - 1893)

rown was born in Calais on 16th April 1821, his father being a ships purser. Brown trained in Belgium, & also in Paris. He visited Rome in 1845/6, coming into contact with the Nazerenes, a group of German painters based in the city. The Nazarenes pre-dated the Pre-Raphaelites, and the two movements had much in common. Brown married his cousin, Elisabeth Bromley, but unfortunately she died in 1846, leaving him with one child. Rossetti approached Brown, asking to be taken on as a studio pupil in early 1848. The suspicious Brown initially thought he was being teased, but on discovering that Rossetti was genuine, took him on as a pupil. This arrangement did not last long, as Rossetti replaced Brown as his instructor, with William Holman Hunt. This does not seem to have affected their relationship, however, as they remained friends until the end of Rossetti's life, when Brown designed his gravestone.

Brown never actually became a member of the PRB, but was closely associated with it. He was a painstaking slow worker, unwilling to accept compromise of any kind. This means that his output was small, but it was often of a very high quality, and a number of his pictures were startlingly original. He began three pictures in the early 1850s, entitled “Work, The Last of England, and Autumn Afternoon.” The first two of these paintings were masterpieces. From the early 1850s Brown lived with Emma Hill, a working class London girl. After the birth of their first child, he married Emma in 1853. Brown worked for a time for William Morris, designing stained glass. In the late 1870s, he was commissioned to produce to paint a number of frescos, for the City of Manchester, at their new Town Hall, and as a result lived in Manchester for a number of years.

Brown was a touchy somewhat difficult character, but was basically a kind, decent human being. There are a number of stories of his helping fellow artists, their widows & children when they were in difficulty. He had a highly original mind, and produced some wonderful images. He may just have been the greatest of all these painters. He finally returned to London, and died there in 1893.

aEdward William Godwin (1833 - 1886)

heatrical Designer and Architect
Born in Bristol, Godwin had intended to train as a civil engineer and was articled to William Armstrong, a local friend who was an architect, and engineer and friend of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He set up his own practice in 1854, but then travelled to Ireland to assist his brother, also a civil engineer, in heavy industrial design for a railway bridge.

His first major commission was the Northampton Town Hall (1861), and was reputedly based on Ruskin’s ‘Stones of Venice’. Many of his designs for furniture and decoration were carried out by Green and King, London. Godwin was among those who made purchases of Japanese objects after the 1862 exhibition, and like many of the Arts and Crafts exponents of the day, he became very influenced by Japanese culture.

His designs for applied art included furniture. wallpapers for Jeffrey & Co.; fabrics for Warner and Ramm; ceramics and tiles for Brownfield, Minton, Hollins & Co. and Wilcock & Co.; and metalwork for Messenger and Co. and Jones and Willis.

Godwin also wrote a series of articles on theatrical scenery and costume, and became increasingly interested in dress design, working at Liberty’s dress department from 1884. He also wrote articles on Japanese art, Celtic and Saxon architecture, and contemporary issues.

In 1875 Godwin left his wife Ellen Terry, and their two children, and soon after married Beatrice Philip, who became a pupil of his friend Whistler, with whom he had collaborated on the furniture for the 1878 exhibition. After Godwin’s death Beatrice married Whistler.

He built Whistler’s controversial White House on Tite Street, Chelsea, and helped Oscar Wilde and Frank Miles re-decorate their houses in the same street in 1884.

In the summer of 1884, when Wilde, after his marriage leased another Tite Street house,-a four storey dwelling with a basement, he engaged Godwin to design the interior as well as the furniture. History records the many letters revealing Wilde’s distress over the details and bills submitted by the workmen through the latter part of that year.

In desperation he implored Godwin to “make a success of it and add bloom and colour”. He apparently was finally pleased with Godwin’s ideas for transforming the house and wrote: “Indeed Godwin is one of the most artistic spirits of this century in England.”

aWilliam Arthur Smith Benson (1854 - 1924)

ritish metalwork and furniture designer
Born in London, the son of a prosperous lawyer and educated at Winchester and Oxford, Benson served his articles in the office of Basil Champneys and remained in the practice until 1880. Founder member of The Art Worker's Guild and in 1914 founded the Design & Industries Association.

He was persuaded by William Morris in 1880, through his friendship with Edward Burne-Jones, whom he had met at Oxford, to open a metalworking workshop in London that year, and in a later expansion a well equipped factory in Hammersmith in 1882, specialising in metalwork.

He also worked for J.S Henry making furniture designs and the Coalbrookdale and Falkirk Iron foundries. In 1887 he opened a retail showroom in Bond St, London. His famous lamp and lighting designs were on show at Samuel Bing's Maison de l'Art Nouveau in Paris.

Benson also designed wallpaper and furniture for Morris & Co, becoming their Managing Director
in 1896.

He Retired from the firm in 1920.

aArchibald Knox (1864 - 1933)

rchibald Knox was born on the Isle of Man.

Educated at St.Barnabas Elementary School Douglas, and studied at the Douglas School of Art with an emphasis on Celtic ornamentation.

In 1897, he began working on designs for Liberty & Co., and in 1899 the first handmade "Cymric" (pronounced KOOMRIC) silver pieces were starting to be produced, many designed by Knox. Between 1892-96 he worked part-time for M.H.Baillie Scott, Architect and Designer He submitted designs for Liberty & Co. in the 1899 Arts & Crafts Exhibition. In 1900 he returned to the Isle of Man and began submitting designs for Liberty's Pewter "Tudric" range of metalware. From 1904 until 1912 he both taught design and continued to design pieces for Liberty's.

He is best known for his very modern interpretations of Celtic ornamentation on the Liberty metalware and jewelry, but also worked on designs for carpets, pottery and fabrics. He was also quite an accomplished watercolorist.

aClarice Cliff (1899 - 1972)

he Epitome Of British Art Deco

Clarice Cliff became the marketing phenomenon of her time with her colourful style of pottery.
As a working-class woman, Clarice Cliff's journey from apprentice gilder to art director was a truly remarkable one.

But the life of this 'brilliant girl artist', (as the press of the day dubbed her), was not without its ironies. Although a modern career woman, she lived for years with her parents in the terraced house she grew up in; she became a very public figure, but still managed to conduct a secretive relationship with her married boss; she designed for women at home, but herself rarely took a day off work.

Of all the pottery produced in Britain during the 1900’s, hers is probably the most familiar, and the most collected.

In 1920, the firm of A.J. Wilkinson purchased the then Newport Pottery, and in 1927 Clarice Cliff set up a small studio at the works. Assisted by the paintress Gladys Scarlett, she set about experimenting with new designs on old stock shapes from the warehouse. The resulting patterns were colourful, brash, outrageously modern, and were designed to be applied free-hand by teams of factory paintresses. Although hand rendered, the wares were still relatively cost effective to produce and were aimed at the mass market. These contemporary patterns were stamped on the back: “Bizarre” by Clarice Cliff. They were so successful that within a year, the entire Newport Pottery works was geared to turning out only Clarice Cliff ware!

Although her success was envy of others among the industry, she never quite shared the status that Susie Cooper attained as a modernistic designer. Clarice Cliff was not a great designer and much of her work is repetitive, but she did succeed in combining an eye for fashion, a wonderful sense of colour, and a taste for decorative frivolity and fun, coupled with a shrewd-almost innate and instinctive understanding of marketing. To her, design was of less importance than marketing, and the success of her Bizarre and other ranges was probably due to marketing rather than specifically her design effort. Her creativity was at its peak during the 1930’s and her reputation today probably belongs to this period. Although she worked right into the 1960’s, she had lost that special “spark” and her designs became dated and repetitive. Sadly Clarice Cliff died in 1972, at a time when a whole new generation of collectors were discovering her work. Their enthusiasm turned her mass-market bold colourings and decorations into works of art.

As a result, and like many artists in history, she has belatedly achieved the artistic reputation she never enjoyed during her lifetime. ( Click here for an example of her work)

	American - New Zealand Bios

Galleries and supporting links can be viewed by pressing on the icons throughout the site