Arts and Crafts Movement Displays

Featuring highlights from the renowned collection of Arts and Crafts Movement pieces at The Wilson. 

A Common Spirit: the Century Guild and the early Arts and Crafts Movement

Until late 2016.

Funded by the Friends and the Art Gallery and Museum Development Trust, this new display presents important new acquisitions by Century Guild designers AH Mackmurdo and Selwyn Image alongside works by William de Morgan, CFA Voysey and Walter Crane.

Standing between the Aesthetic Movement of the 1870s and 80s and the Arts and Crafts Movement, The Century Guild designers were an important influence on later designers in both art style and lifestyle. The three new acquisitions, a unique chair by Mackmurdo; fabric also by Mackmurdo; and a stunning embroidery designed by Selwyn Image and made by the Royal School of Art Needlework show the new directions design was taking in the 1870s and 1880s.

Image shows detail of Chair and fabric by AH Mackmurdo.
   

Image shows Chair by AH Mackmurdo for The Century Guild, c. 1887. © Paul Reeves London