The 2024 Furniture History Society symposium, ‘New Light on Arts and Crafts Furniture and Interiors’, will be held on Saturday 23 March at the Art Workers’ Guild, Queen Square, London, and will be live-streamed via YouTube. 

The day will feature papers from an eminent panel of curators, scholars and furniture makers. The first session will focus on new research into the interpretation of surviving interiors, including discoveries made while preparing the recent refurbishment at Kelmscott Manor, Gloucestershire and an exploration of the rich and complex mix of furnishings at Emery Walker's House, Hammersmith. There will be a discussion of the issues facing the National Trust in presenting their newest property, Gertrude Jekyll’s house Munstead Wood, which is currently unfurnished. 

In the second sessions speakers will present fresh information on individual designers of furniture and will bring to light the often little-known craftspeople who made it. Papers will include the transmission of design traditions through workshop practice, down to contemporary makers such as the Marchmont workshop, and the influence of early published photographs on later designers, manufacturers and copyists.

PROGRAMME

10.00 - 10.30 am        

Registration and coffee/tea

10.30-10.35 am                      

Welcome by Christopher Rowell, FHS Chairman

10.35-10.40 am          

Introduction by chair of morning: Tessa Wild – Designers and Interiors

10.40-11.05 am          

Evidential Choreography: Recomposing the interiors at Kelmscott Manor

Dr Kathy Haslam FSA, Curator, Kelmscott Manor

11.05-11.30 am      

Exhibiting the art of domestic life at Emery Walker’s House 

Dr Imogen Hart, Managing Editor, Journal of Modern Craft

11.30-11.40 am                      

Short Break 

11.40am-12.05 pm    

Gertrude Jekyll and Munstead Wood: the home of the artist-gardener

Dr Caroline Ikin, Curator, National Trust, Munstead Wood 

12.05-12.30 pm                      

Evolution, not revolution. Interpreting Ernest Gimson's designs through the generations 

The Marchmont Workshop: Richard Platt & Sam Cooper, Furniture Makers

12.30-12.45 pm                      

Q & A

12.45-2.00 pm                        

Lunch 

2.00-2.05 pm              

Introduction by chair of afternoon: Martin Levy –Designers and Makers     

2.05-2.25 pm              

The Early Years of the Art Workers' Guild

Peyton Skipwith, Fine art consultant and author

2.25-2.45 pm              

BIFMO and the Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society Catalogues, 1888-1916

Clarissa Ward, BIFMO 19th/early 20th Century Editor & Jo Buckrell, BIFMO Research Assistant and Researcher, Haslemere Educational Museum

2.45-3.10 pm              

A Question of Attribution: the contemporaneous appropriation of architect designed Arts & Crafts furniture.

Tony Peart, Senior Lecturer in Illustration at the University of Cumbria 

3.10-3.25 pm              

Short Break

3.25-3.50 pm              

Augustus H. Mason: 'Cabinet Maker, chiefly special designs'

Annette Carruthers, Honorary Senior Lecturer, University of St Andrews

3.50-4.15 pm              

Garden of Hearts: A Case Study of an American Arts and Crafts Masterpiece

Daniel S. Sousa, Assistant Curator, Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts, USA

4.15-4.45 pm              

Q & A

4.45-5.00 pm              

Closing remarks/summing up

5.00 pm                      

End

Tickets for the Symposium (also for lunch and a drinks reception with the speakers, for FHS Members, optional) are available on Eventbrite. Click here

All ticket holders will automatically receive the recordings after the event. 

Picture credits:  Chair designed by Ernest Gimson after 1888, V&A Circ.232-1960; Munstead Wood, designed by Edwin Lutyens for Gertrude Jekyll, 1896; Lily wallpaper designed by William Morris, 1873, V&A E.484-1919