British Furniture and Design
Furniture and design made in Britain, from Georgian cabinetmaking and Victorian reform to post-war modernism and contemporary studios.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
No open-access works for British Furniture and Design are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About
British furniture reached a wide audience in the 18th century through printed pattern books. Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director (1754) spread his mix of Rococo, Gothic and Chinese motifs across Britain and its colonies, and Thomas Sheraton's drawing book of the 1790s popularised slender Neoclassical forms. Architects designed furniture too: Robert Adam matched chairs, mirrors and carpets to his ceilings.
In the Victorian age Christopher Dresser designed geometric electroplated teapots for industrial production, while Morris & Co. argued for handwork. Modernism arrived modestly: Gerald Summers bent a single sheet of plywood into an armchair in the 1930s, and Robin Day's injection-moulded Polyprop chair (1963) was made in enormous numbers. Since the 1980s London has been home to Tom Dixon, whose early chairs were welded from scrap, the understated Jasper Morrison and Thomas Heatherwick, who moves between buildings and objects.
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