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LIVE 24-SEVEN


A BUY E R’ S GUIDE DR CHRISTOPHER DRESSER


Among the first of the independent industrial designers, Christopher Dresser championed design reform in 19th century Britain while embracing modern manufacturing in the development of wallpaper, textiles, ceramics, glass, furniture and metalware.


To say he was ahead of time is something of an understatement. His radical designs were a breath of fresh air in the weighty and sombre world of late Victorian style. Considered an early pioneer of what would become the 20th century style, his work is greatly admired and collected all over the world.


Will Farmer is our antiques & collectors expert, he is well known for his resident work on the Antiques Roadshow, he has also written for the popular ‘Miller’s Antique Guide’. Those in the know will have also come across him at ‘Fieldings Auctioneers’. We are delighted that Will writes for Live 24-Seven, he brings with him a wealth of knowledge and expertise.


By the end of the 19th century Dr Christopher Dresser was a household name, famed for his extensive array of industrial designs used for furnishing ordinary people with well-made, efficient and engaging goods. Over his career he designed literally hundreds of objects and his commercial success is all the more remarkable as he also pioneered what we now recognise as the simple modern aesthetic. Radical for the time, some of Dresser’s products, notably his 1880’s metal toast racks, are still in production today.


Born in Glasgow in 1834 into a non-conformist family, Dresser was an exceptionally talented child. At the age of 13 he won a place at the newly established Government School of Design. This new system of art training was set up to improve the standard of British design for industry by joining the disciplines of art and science.


Having specialised in botanical studies, Dresser became a lecturer in botany when he left the College in 1854, however after failing to win the Chair of Botany at the University of London in 1860, Dresser turned his efforts towards design, setting up a studio at his home in St Peter Square, Hammersmith. His study of plants had a profound effect on his approach to design; seeing nothing superfluous in nature, where every beautiful thing had simplicity of form and a clear function, Dresser applied the same principle to design.


By 1868 Dresser had a number of roles: working as a designer; an advisor to manufacturers; an author; and a teacher. Increasingly successful, he moved to a large house in the fashionable and artistic Campden Hill area of London in 1869. By 1871 Dresser declared that, “…as an ornamentalist I have much the largest practice in the kingdom” and produced designs for wallpaper, textiles, stained glass, ceramics and metalware.


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