Opened earlier this year, the George Frederic Watts Studio is the latest phase of the Watts Gallery Artists Village, a hidden treasure trove of Pre-Raphaelite art and design, focussed on the work of the artist and sculptor George Frederick Watts and his wife Mary, located in Compton near Guildford in Surrey. The Studio has been […]
It is 1932, there are political tensions in Germany which will see Adolf Hitler become Chancellor in 1933 and, closer to home, Aldous Huxley publishes his “Brave New World”. A door opens, a masked woman enters and drops flour bags made of hessian which split open as £300 of nineteenth century coins spill out onto the desk, […]
When Robert Adam designed the classical interiors of Osterley Park on the outskirts of London, he also designed in intricate detail the furniture, the mirrors and other details including the ironmongery on the elegant doors. There is a long tradition of architects such as Robert Adam, William Kent, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, Frank Lloyd Wright and […]
Churches with roofs shaped in a huge variety of folded concrete forms, spirals and shells, bus shelters that are sculptures, paraboloid arches, flying circular disks or a series of shell barrel vaulted shells, sports halls, theatres and concert halls with soaring concrete domes which are free of internal columns; government offices, libraries, hospital and university buildings which […]
Movies bringing glamour, music and colour into the grey austerity of post-war Britain in the 1950’s included “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”(1953), “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (1954), “The Seven Year Itch” (1955) and “Bus Stop” in 1956, all staring Marilyn Monroe. Dresses worn by Marilyn Monroe in several of her films or worn on other […]
People are rushing from one exhibition to another showroom; clutching their red guidebooks as if their lives depending on them, the rich variety of languages showing how international Clerkenwell Design Week has become, both in terms of the design, furniture and material showrooms that have concentrated in this area of London and of the visitors who […]
Although the church of St James in Clerkenwell, London, has an old and colourful history, in 1788 an Act of Parliament was passed to replace the unsatisfactory aggregation of buildings with a new modern church designed by James Carr in the style of Sir Christopher Wren and James Gibbs. Dedicated in 1792 with upper galleries […]
A bowl formed of fourteen connecting leaves of silver, so challenging that other polishers turned down the job of finishing and polishing Toby Russell’s “Millennial Bowl” before the workshop of Elliot-Fitzpatrick successfully took the challenge on, a pair of peppermills designed by Clive Burr in collaboration with the enameller Jane Short who created the leopard […]
The barriers are out, the bouncers are standing outside and the doors are open, but, hold on a moment, it’s the middle of the day and there isn’t the normal throbbing sound of deep base notes vibrating through the old building. Who goes to a nightclub in the middle of the day apart from the […]
Hanging overhead like a globe in Olympia’s National Hall is Chun Kwang Young’s sculpture “Aggregation” (2006) made from Korean mulberry paper. If this show is anyone’s, it is Chun Kwang Young’s as his characteristic works in the same series are found in several galleries on display. Another of the projects is Dominic Harris “Ice Angel” (2015) an […]
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