The Art and Crafts Movement
Autumn calf, 1952, by William Simmonds
The Arts and Crafts Gallery offers an opportunity to appreciate fine craftsmanship, art and design from about 1880 to the 1940s with internationally important collections. This is the collection for which the Art Gallery & Museum has received Designated status.
The Arts and Crafts Movement took shape in the 1880s as a reaction to the effects of the Industrial Revolution on design, the environment and people's working lives. It stood for straightforward functional design, decoration based on plant forms, and above all the importance of creative manual work. Beginning with William Morris' reaction to mid 19th-century art, the Gallery illustrates the work of some of the London-based pioneers of the Movement. Of particular note is the group of furniture designed by Charles Voysey for Mr and Mrs Ward Higgs.
At the turn of the century several designers moved to the Cotswolds. They were attracted by the remoteness of the region, the romantic appeal of its hills, valleys and stone-built villages, and the partial survival of traditional building crafts.
Arts and Crafts room setting with furniture
and metalwork designed by Ernest Gimson
and Ernest Barnsley, 1905-30
A great variety of Cotswold Arts and Crafts is on display, ranging from leather panels, elaborate cabinets, silver and jewellery by Charles Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft based at Chipping Campden to the more simple pieces in wood and metal designed by Ernest Gimson and Sidney and Ernest Barnsley. There is also a room setting echoing the designers' homes at Sapperton.
The Gallery also features the work of less well-known Cotswold figures such as Alfred and Louise Powell, who hand-painted pottery for Wedgwood; carver, William Simmonds; and painters, William Rothenstein, Charles Gere and Dorothy Larcher.
The work of retail outlets such as Heal's and Liberty's is used to illustrate the way the Arts and Crafts style was adapted for the commercial market. In the 1930s, a more commercial approach was also taken by the firm of Russell & Sons in Broadway. The prime mover, Gordon Russell whose work is well-represented in the Gallery, wanted to make good design an affordable and essential part of everyday life.
Despite the impact of the First World War, the Movement led to a remarkable revival of craft skills in the Cotswolds. The display ends by showing its influence on some designer-makers from further afield, including Romney Green, Eric Sharpe, Edward Barnsley and Rod and Alison Wales.