The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the Present

IntroductionAuthor(s): Muriel WilsonSource: The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society 1850 - the Present, No. 26, OmniumGatherum - A Collection of Papers (2002), p. 7Published by: The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the PresentStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41809321 .

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Introduction

Omnium Gatherum is not just a cop-out for an Editor too lazy to think up a clever theme for the DAS Journal. It follows a hallowed tradition whereby every few years (the last occasion was in 1994), an opportunity is provided for all those wistful scholars whose cherished research project never seems quite to fit into the frame for the next volume. In fact most of the various themes chosen in the past seem remarkably accommodating, but this time the announcement of an invitation to all comers stimulated a gratifyingly diverse response. It proved difficult for the editorial committee to make a balanced choice from the synopses offered. Our hope is that the selection, of about half the papers proposed, will demonstrate once again the range of serious research now being pursued in the vast field of later 19th and 20th Century decorative arts.

Victorian furniture and its commercial promotion has been a regular feature in the Journal, and James Bettley s study of the prosperous business of church furnishing focuses on the history of a particular firm, Cox & Sons, flourishing from the 1850s in the provision of every kind of church decoration, until the monopoly of such large commercial concerns was undermined by the Arts and Crafts preference for working with individual designers.

W J Neatby's principal claim to renown is the Meat Hall in Harrods, and aficionados also cherish buildings in Bristol, Norwich and Smithfield.Alastair Scott Anderson gives us a more rounded picture of Neatbys achievement, illuminating his versatility through the design firm he set up in 1901. The paper locates Neatby as standing between the Arts and Crafts movement, the New English Art style and progressive commercial design of the Edwardian period.

Many DAS members attended the special evening visit last September to the Walter Crane exhibition at South London Gallery. This celebrated the uncovering of the rarely seen marquetry floor designed by Crane when the Gallery was built. Christopher Jordan, curator of the SLG collection, has worked extensively on Crane's involvement in the founding of the gallery. In his paper he traces the history of the floor, relating it to other aspects of Crane s work, and draws attention to the rediscovery of a vast painting by Crane sold last June by Christie's.

Attentive readers may recall a tantalising illustration in Diana de Vere Cole's essay on Sir Frank Brangwyn - Decorator (Journal 21), showing a drawing for the unbuilt 'Sheer Pleasure Arts Pavilion4 designed for the Japanese business man Mr Matsukata in 1922. Libby Horner (who is compiling a catalogue raisonné of Brangwyn's work and welcomes contributions) takes the pavilion as a crucial element in Brangwyn's long interest in Japan and his interest in collecting Japanese art, for her paper in this volume.

Dr Elizabeth Goring has been researching the field of Suffragette jewellery and its importance within the Women's Movement for several years. Her assertion is that this is probably a unique instance of jewellery, those frivolous trinkets that the ladies, bless 'em, like to deck themselves with, being used as a serious political statement. Amethysts, pearls and emeralds, or mass-produced enamelled base metal, worn as a medal of honour or a badge of martyrdom, are significant as propaganda tools, and poignant in our post-Feminist climate.

Studies of two women ceramics artists bring us to the mid 20th Century. We know too little about the many significant designers working in European countries whose careers fell victim to political upheavals in the middle of last century. Judy Rudoe and Ursula Hudson-Wiedenmann redress this with their account of the career of the Bauhaus-trained Grete Marks, who set up her own successful factory near Berlin in 1923, designing and manufacturing avant-garde ceramic wares. The climate surrounding the 'Entartete Kunst' exhibition forced her emigration to Britain where she found work in Stoke-on-Trent. Examples of her work in Germany are displayed at the British Museum. Katie Arber takes Peggy Angus' tiles for Carter Sc Company as her subject, and has curated an important exhibition of Angus' designs at MoDA (until 5 January 2003). She was closely allied to the circle of English Modernist architects, for whom she designed schemes using pattern tiles, as William de Morgan had done for an earlier age, but styled to enhance modern interiors in the years after World War II.

In contrast to the career histories, the surveys and the 'new light on's, in this Journal as in previous volumes, the paper from Eric Turner and Simon Metcalf on a conservation case-history forms a sorbet in our banquet. Their account of the meticulous scraping down of a cast-iron hat-stand designed by the ubiquitous Dr Dresser is an object lesson in the value of the physical examination of artefacts and of their restoration.

This gatherum makes for a rich mixture of subjects, each presented by a scholar whose diligence is apparent in the writing. As editor I hope you will be enlightened and entertained.

Muriel Wilson

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