| Current stock |
| Gallery tour |
| Arts & Crafts |
| The Antique Trader |
| The Millinery Works |
| Art Gallery and previous art exhibitions |
| Forthcoming exhibitions |
| Past furniture exhibitions |
| How to contact us and opening hours |
21st
CENTURY FURNITURE II
The Arts & Crafts Legacy page
1
A Selling Exhibition of Today's Designer Makers
30 March to 25 April 2009
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
INDEX
The Millinery Works is closely associated with the Arts and Crafts movement and in this exhibition many of the makers have a similar association, often in fact a direct inspiration. The Arts and Crafts movement was one of political and aesthetic revolt against a Victorian urban industrialism, led by inspirational socialist thinkers of the calibre of William Morris and artists like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rosetti.
The makers in this show can certainly be regarded as a movement, though perhaps some would not share my direct assertion. What they are revolting against may not be obvious. The web forum that has enabled this exhibition to be staged contains a loose association of rugged individuals; each maker supporting a myriad of different causes, ideals and creative directions. Most are deliberately working far from the centres of cultural power and influence. They inhabit small isolated workshops, some in urban but many in rural settings often creating work inspired by land, wind and weather. All the makers will have had to become expert at providing an exceptional customer service - they listen carefully to their clients and respond with a sensitive and creative interpretation. Time and again these artisans have exceeded their customer’s expectation and made something that is truly extraordinary. The best will have the support of genuinely creative patronage.
The exhibition here last year was an unqualified success; the exhibitors then as now showed work that stunned with the quality of design, concept and execution. Workmanship, a key tenet of Arts and Crafts ideology, was seen almost as “a given”, an unquestionable, integral aspect of the work displayed. It proves, if there was any doubt, that today’s British Art and Craft exponents carry on a remarkable tradition and express their philosophy in a manner that is relevant and contemporary. Design and Expression are becoming two parts of the same occupation as makers use their considerable technical vocabulary to begin to speak clearly and meaningfully about our age and our culture. We see here and now a period of furniture making being referred to as a “Golden Period” and once again British Furniture Makers, as a movement, are leading the world.
David Binnington Savage Feb 2010.