Design
At the suggestion of his friend A. H. Mackmurdo, Voysey began designing wallpapers in 1883 under contract for Jeffrey & Co while waiting for architectural commissions to come in. He joined the Art-Workers' Guild in 1884, and displayed both printed textiles and wallpapers at the inaugural Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society show at the New Gallery in 1888. In 1893 he began designing wallpapers for Essex & Co., for whom he executed several hundred patterns.
Distinct stages can be identified in Voysey's wallpaper and textile designs. His earliest works, through the late 1880s, have historically-influenced traditional repeats. By the mid-1890s, he was creating his most characteristic and original designs, flowing patterns in pastel colourways with flattened silhouettes of birds, florals, and hearts. Designs were used for both wallpaper and textiles, which were often executed as wool double cloths for furnishing. Typical patterns of this period include The Saladin wallpaper, 1897 (sample) and The Owl jacquard-woven woollen textile, 1898 (sample.) From 1910 onwards, his patterns became more narrative, with isolated motifs, and were often meant for the nursery. The Alice in Wonderland furnishing fabric, c.1920, is typical of this phase. His last recorded wallpaper commission was dated 1930.
In 1896, The Studio confirmed Voysey's place in the decorative arts, writing "Now a 'Voysey wall-paper' sounds almost as familiar as a 'Morris chintz' or a 'Liberty silk'." Voysey also designed for Donegal Carpets and many other firms over a fifty-year career in design.
Read more about this topic: Charles Voysey (architect)
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“The reason American cars don’t sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful. That’s why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.”
—Karl Lagerfeld (b. 1938)
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)