Godfrey Blount was a painter who was deeply influenced by the ideas of leading art critic of the Victorian era, John Ruskin. In 1896 Blount and his wife Ethel moved to Haslemere in Surrey to join Ethel's sister, Maud, and her husband Joseph, who had established the Haslemere Peasant Industries. This group of workshop-based craft enterprises together formed an artistic community that aimed at obtaining 'the double pleasure of lovely surroundings and happy work'. The Blounts later set up their own enterprise called the Peasant Arts Society, which used local women to produce hand-woven pile carpets and simple embroidered appliqués on linen known as 'peasant tapestries'. Made to Blount's designs, the tapestries were used as door curtains, casement curtains, bed spreads and bed hangings, and became very fashionable in artistic circles. Ernest Gimson, who died on the 12th of August 1919, was described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘the greatest of the English artist-craftsmen’. Gimson made significant contributions as an architect, a maker of plasterwork and turned chairs, and as a designer of embroideries and metalwork, but is probably best known today for his furniture. So how do you mark the centenary of one of Britain’s greatest Arts & Crafts designers?

Gimson was also working on a series of houses and cottages for friends and family in Leicester and Leicestershire and appears to have designed little furniture apart from chairs between 1893 and 1901, though he exhibited at the 1899 A&CES a mahogany chair made by A. H. Mason and an inlaid oak box executed to Gimson’s design by Sidney Barnsley. In 1901, however, Gimson and Ernest Barnsley went into partnership together, employing cabinet makers to make their designs, initially in a workshop in Cirencester and then at Daneway House, just below the village of Sapperton. Curiously, the six surviving drawings by Gimson signed ‘B&G’, and therefore definitely from this partnership, are all dated 1902, but there are also several from the previous year for a very different type of piece. The B&G works were made in English oak with heavy chamfering and lattice patterns derived from farm wagons, while the 1901 designs were for veneered cabinets in mahogany, ebony or walnut with decoration of marquetry or gilded gesso. Barnsley’s drawings were later destroyed and it is difficult to assess his contribution to the business, but it appears that they may have had different ideas about the kind of work they would produce. His architectural style is "solid and lasting as the pyramids… yet gracious and homelike" (H. Wilson, 1899). Lethaby described him as an idealist individualist: "Work not words, things not designs, life not rewards were his aims." Norman Jewson was his foremost student, who carried his design principles into the next generation and described his studio practices in his classic memoir By Chance I did Rove (1951). A stunning Grade II listed thatched cottage nestling within the highly sought after Charnwood Forest. Nicholas Mander, Owlpen Manor, Gloucestershire: a short history and guide (Owlpen Press, current edition, 2006) OCLC 57576417 ISBN 0-9546056-1-6In reading Ruskin the other day I came across this motto: ‘Every man a law to himself’ that would be a good one don’t you think? It shows the distinction between liberty and licence that should be made clear.’ Ernest William Gimson (1864-1919) for the Lea Cottage wardrobe Ulverscroft, England, circa 1898 oak, iron 46 1/2"w x 23"d x 77"h Provenance: Christie's, New York, New York, Important 20th Century Decorative Arts Including Wiener, 09 December 2003, Sale 1311, Lot 61 Catalog Note: Ernest William Gimson is known as one of the most important figures of English Arts & Crafts Movement of the 20th century. Born to an engineer and iron founder Josiah Gimson of Gimson & Company that manufactured steam engines and various machineries, Gimson gained his working knowledge in engineering and design at an early age. At 15, he began working as an apprentice at a renowned architectural firm in his hometown of Leicester. At 19, after attending a lecture entitled 'Art and Socialism' by William Morris, he was completely drawn by Morris' philosophy and the Arts & Crafts Movement as a whole. This encounter had such a significant impact on Gimson who maintained close ties with Morris thereafter. In 1887, upon completing his apprenticeship and education at Leicester School of Art, he began his professional career as a designer and architect in London with John Dando Seddin's firm. During his two-year tenure with the company, Gimson trained himself by creating intricate, natural design elements and embodying the philosophy of the Arts & Crafts Movement. In 1889, Gimson joined Morris' Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and continued his effort in preserving not only historic architecture, but also the traditional methods of crafts — an essential part of Arts & Crafts Movement. By 1893, Gimson had uprooted his life in London and moved with brothers Ernest and Sidney Barnsley to a rural region of Gloucestershire in the Cotswolds, where they practiced furniture making for a small group of clients and planned to establish a "Utopian craft village" characterized by simplicity and pleasurable labor. This wardrobe was custom made for the Lea Cottage, designed by Gimson and executed by Detmar Blow between 1898 and 1899, for his siblings as their summer retreat. Toomey & Co. Auctioneers

Work’ examines his oeuvre in greater detail, from early architectural projects, houses and gardens, to later architectural work and planning schemes, plasterwork, interior decoration and furnishings, furniture design and making, metalwork. It also covers lesser known areas including embroidery and bookbinding. In the final chapter which considers the Gimson tradition, it is notable that Josef Frank of the Austrian Werkbund adapted formal elements from Gimson’s furniture and admired his approach to interior decoration. Nicholas Hobbs also introduced attendees to his work, culminating in the impressive pieces he designed and made for St Hugh’s Chapel at Lincoln Cathedral in 2017 – furniture that is full of meaning yet intensely practical. Lawrence NealGimson also took on Geoffrey Lupton as a pupil in 1905. Like Gimson his family ran an engineering firm but Lupton gave up his apprenticeship and spent a year in the workshops at Daneway. He went on to work as an architect and builder in Hampshire. In 1911, he funded and built the assembly hall at Bedales, his old school, to Gimson’s design and also built the Memorial Library, again to Gimson’s design, after the First World War. Gimson’s Relationship with his Craftsmen It was the forerunner of the Humanist movement and had many links to socialism. Leicester is the only city in Britain which still has a building entirely devoted to secularism. This diverse range was possible because they had recruited a highly skilled and experienced young cabinet maker as foreman. Pieter van der Waals (aka Peter Waals) was a Dutchman who had worked in The Hague, Brussels, Berlin and Vienna and whom Gimson had encountered in London. He also took on other experienced men, including Harry Davoll, who had been with Waring & Gillow in Liverpool, and Percy Burchett. From the beginning, boys recruited locally were trained as apprentices. That organic look would have been even stronger when the house was built, for Gimson roofed Stoneywell with thatch. Unfortunately, the thatch caught fire in 1938 and was replaced with a slate roof. At the same time, the house was altered to make it suitable as a full-time residence. Prior to the fire, Stoneywell had only ever been a summer residence. Norman Jewson, who first met Gimson in the summer of 1907, subsequently described his first impressions: