Cecil Millar and the Power of Chintz

Illustration: Cecil Millar. Silk brocade textile design, c1906.

At one point in time during the first few years of the twentieth century, the English designer Cecil Millar was spoken of in the same terms as Charles Francis Annesley Voysey, Walter Crane, Lindsay Philip Butterfield, Lewis F Day and Sydney Mawson. However, today his name has been largely forgotten despite the fact that he produced a fair amount of popular decorative work.

The two examples shown here were produced around the year 1906 and were included within The Studio magazines annual yearbook for that year. The first example is that of a silk brocade, while the second is that of a wool tapestry fabric, both were meant as interior fabrics which was seen as one Millar's particular strong points.

Millar's style seems to have been one that, although not doggedly nostalgic, did take into consideration the long history of English textile pattern work in particular. Although still based on natural observation, Millar's work was much more inspired by a stylised interpretation of nature, and was often referred to as 'chintz-like', although this was not necessarily an exact interpretation of his work. Although his work could sometimes appear to be somewhat heavier and more formalised than perhaps some of his contemporaries during this period, his styling did take into account both the British penchant for chintz and other textile design work that followed closely this particular style.

Chintz itself is a large and fascinating subject. Although the style has been associated with India, where it originated, it also has a long independent history across Europe, being produced in a number of individual and nationalistic styles. English chintz has proved consistently popular throughout its decorative history, at least in England. It has served well as an interior fabric and has been reinvented and reimagined by any number of designers and manufacturers.

Illustration: Cecil Millar. Wool tapestry textile design, c1906.

To show the power that this borrowed Indian design style truly has had on both the British psyche and their interiors, can be seen by giving a clear example. An extraordinary British advertising campaign by Ikea, the Swedish flat-pack interiors company, at the very start of the twenty first century, advised the British to throw out their chintz in favour of Ikea's own imaginative interpretation of Scandinavian Modern. The campaign quickly back-fired and led to accusations ranging from bullying to dissmisiveness, misunderstanding and even deliberate misinterpretation of national tastes and styles. Although only meant as a light-hearted advertising campaign, the interpretation that many in Britain took, clearly ended that particular form of advertising.

This near contemporary example goes someway into explaining not only the British attachment to particular styles and motifs in pattern work that are seen as near domestic in origin, but also generally those of different peoples and cultures across the planet. Ikea's mistake perhaps was to imagine that their own multi-international style could remove national flavours and taste. However, these national and often regional quirks, although an irritation to internationally motivated companies that have little interest in accommodating any real form of regionalism and ethnic and cultural diversity, can often be part of a much more fundamental feeling. Often they can give a sense of belonging and of a shared and communal understanding, even when considering a seemingly innocuous textile motif or pattern.

This also concerns the subject of Cecil Millar and some of his traditionally styled textile work. Although the examples shown here might well have been outside the remit of the popular and fashionable Art Nouveau styling that still dominated Europe in the first decade of the twentieth century, chintz was still a style that many of the British public were both familiar and comfortable with. To attempt to remove a style from a culture merely for the sake of it, or in Ikea's case for profit, can often prove to be counter-productive and even invasive. This is not to say that the public should not be offered contemporary alternatives to old favourites, but if the old favourites prove too powerful a draw, then perhaps the alternative would be the route that Millar took in at least part of his patterned output, the re-imagining and re-interpretation of a faithful and much loved decorative style. Interestingly, the fact that Ikea now produces its own variation of chintz is perhaps telling.

Reference links:
Chintz: Indian Textiles for the West
Chintz (3rd Edition) : The Charlton Standard Catalogue
Trade Goods: A Study of Indian Chintz in the Collection of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, Smithsonian Institution
Origins of Chintz
Chintz by design
Chintz and Cotton India's Textile Gift to the World
The Chintz Collectors Handbook
Chintz Quilts: Unfading Glory
Printed Fabrics: Bingata, Chintz, Kalamkari, Androsia, Nankeen, Cretonne
English Chintz
Two Centuries of English Chintz, 1750-1950
The Chintz Collection: the Calico Museum of Textiles, India: 2 Volumes, Limited Edition

John Illingworth Kay Wallpapers

Illustration: John Illingworth Kay. Rose Stripe wallpaper design, 1906.

The decorative work of the English designer John Illingworth Kay is often seen as both expansive and original, with large areas of foliage clustered throughout his work being a particular theme of his style of decoration. However, these examples of wallpaper work produced by him in the first decade of the twentieth century also show the ability of an artist or designer to control, or at least to temper, personal tastes or excesses to those of the larger public taste, or at least to that of their perceived taste.

Kay produced these examples for the English influential wallpaper manufacturer Essex & Co. Interestingly this was the same period that Kay was actually head of the design department of the company. He was to retain that position for the first two decades of the twentieth century. He saw the best of the early twentieth century phase of British design and decoration, with names such as Charles Francis Annesley Voysey, E L Pattison, Lindsay Philip Butterfield and T R Spence providing decorative pattern work for the wallpaper company.

 Illustration: John Illingworth Kay. Abingworth wallpaper design, 1907.

Edwardian England was a period of mixed and often acute contrasts. Socially, politically and artistically it could be said that England was at its most static with the small minority at the top of society holding firmly on to the reigns of power and privilege, while the majority at the bottom were beginning to show obvious signs of irritation and discontent with the imposed status quo. It was obvious to many that society was going to have to accommodate a much larger participation in all aspects of life from all social classes. However, the uneasy and unjust balance between the few 'haves' and the majority 'have-nots' was maintained largely unscathed throughout the Edwardian era. This has given us the often repeated idea that Edwardian England was that of a long and sentimental late summer of garden parties and country retreats. Interestingly, those who maintain this sentiment often derive from the social classes that would never have been allowed to participate in this fantasy in the first place. 

Illustration: John Illingworth Kay. Bianca wallpaper design, 1907.

It would perhaps be more accurate to portray Edwardian England as a society and culture that was locked into a strict framework. This framework was used to strangle any form of upheaval or large-scale change in the status quo. It could be fairly seen as a period when the upper classes attempted to put the brake on any further social or cultural change. Particularly change that was to effect the status and power of women, the working man and even that of the Empire. These changes could, and eventually did affect the position of this small minority, dissolving its influence and power to a great extent.

Society is often reflected in the arts and particularly those of the decorative arts. The formalised and conservative structure of Kay's wallpaper design work could be said to at least partially reflect the stiff intransigence of many aspects of English life. While the rest of Europe largely came to accept, and in many cases to even embrace the tenets of the Art Nouveau movement, England was both cautious and tempered in its approach. Many of the decorative and art magazines published in London were openly scathing of what was considered the 'new movement'. The abandonment of formal structure and the indulgence in the contemporary was considered by many to be shortsighted and contrary to the English way.

Illustration: John Illingworth Kay. Walden wallpaper design, 1907.

Although there is an element of individuality and the contemporary within these designs, and to be fair Kay did produce more varied and luxurious pattern work for wallpaper production, the examples shown here are locked into a fairly rigid and formal structure. In some ways at least, they do reflect the formal cautiousness of the English. To embrace the new and the untried would be to embrace change in more avenues than was perhaps acceptable for Edwardian England.

Further reading links:
The Edwardians: The Remaking of British Society
The Diehards: Aristocratic Society and Politics in Edwardian England (Harvard Historical Studies)
Women and Social Action in Victorian and Edwardian England
Twentieth-Century Pattern Design
Wallpaper: A History of Style and Trends
Wallpaper
The Papered Wall: The History, Patterns and Techniques of Wallpaper, Second Edition
Wallpaper in America: From the Seventeenth Century to World War I
Wallpaper: The Ultimate Guide
Fabrics and Wallpapers for Historic Buildings
The Walls Are Talking: Wallpaper, Art and Culture
Wall Papers for Historic Buildings: A Guide to Selecting Reproduction Wallpapers
London Wallpapers: Their Manufacture and Use 1690-1840 (Revised Edition)
Wallpaper (Historic Houses Trust Collection)

Harry Napper Wallpapers

Illustration: Harry Napper. Whitwood wallpaper design, 1906.

Harry Napper was a British designer in both the mediums of textile and wallpaper, who was particularly popular at the turn of the twentieth century. His work was much more European influenced than other British designers and he was therefore at the forefront of the Art Nouveau movement.

The wallpaper designs shown here were all featured within The Studio magazine of 1906 and were produced by the wallpaper manufacturer and importer Rottmann & Co. It is interesting to note that Rottmanns were both producers and importers of wallpapers, which goes some ways towards explaining their interest in Napper and his European design style and connection.

 Illustration: Harry Napper. St Austell wallpaper design, 1906.

By 1906 Britain had largely succumbed to the all pervasive decorative style of Art Nouveau, even though many of the most popular British designers were still somewhat reticent about introducing more than a hesitant glimpse of this new European movement. The fact that within mainland Europe by the middle of the first decade of the twentieth century the main and original impetus of Art Nouveau had largely run its course seemed largely immaterial to the British public who had only recently begun to accept the changes that had taken place across Europe a decade before.

Illustration: Harry Napper. Churston wallpaper design, 1906.

Although the wallpaper design work produced by Napper during this period was indeed heavily influenced by the pattern work of Europe, it is also very much a tempered, sober and therefore very British affair. Much of the exaggerated and flamboyant gestures of sinuous and intertwined foliage have gone, to be replaced by a much more structured and symmetrically imposed pattern work that seems more reminiscent of the Art Nouveau decorative work of Central Europe than that of France or Belgium. However, these design pieces are a cultural compromise, and so as with many compromises, the initial dynamism and excitement that was such an intrinsic part of both the French/Belgian and Austrian/German Art Nouveau movements, is missing. This inevitably left only the outward appearance of the decorative style, and even that has been contained and shorn of all its original vigour and detail.

Illustration: Harry Napper. Portledge wallpaper design, 1906.

Interestingly, Napper named all of these wallpaper designs after place names in England, most of them situated in the West Country. This was a standard procedure within the Arts & Crafts movement, particularly used by designers such as William Morris who was always keen to anchor much of his design work within the confines of an English cultural heritage. Whether Napper was trying to do the same with Art Nouveau is unknown. 

It does seem a little anachronistic to try to attach names of what would have been perceived in Britain as traditional and relatively unchanging towns and villages, to that of a very modern and contemporary decorative style. Inevitably it does not work. There is genuinely too much that appears both mismatched and compromised. However, in effect a large percentage of the history of British culture has been one of tempered and constrained compromise, often to the detriment of that culture. 

Illustration: Harry Napper. Yetminster wallpaper design, 1906.

Perhaps it could be seen that this is not so much a failure to transpose a design style across cultures, but of a culture with a fairly rigid and insular template, imposing that template on as many domestic and foreign innovations as possible, with a fair degree of success.

It must be said that Art Nouveau as seen across Europe never really materialised with those same particular formats within the British decorative arts. These Napper wallpaper designs, while at first appearing to be the standard Art Nouveau formats, are heavily censored and should be seen as such.

Further reading links:
Art Nouveau: Utopia: Reconciling the Irreconcilable (Taschen's 25th Anniversary Special Editions Series)
422 Art Nouveau Designs and Motifs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Art Nouveau
The Art Nouveau Style Book of Alphonse Mucha
Art Nouveau Floral Patterns and Stencil Designs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Treasury of Art Nouveau Design & Ornament (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Art Nouveau Designs (Design Source Books)
Art Nouveau Tiles + CD Rom
Art Nouveau: An Anthology of Design and Illustration from "The Studio" (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)
Art Nouveau, 1890-1914
300 Art Nouveau Designs and Motifs in Full Color (Dover Pictorial Archive Series)

Heal's Furniture and the Arts & Crafts Ideal

Illustration: Heal's advertising literature, 1898.

Ambrose Heal set out with the idea to expand his family's bedding business into the lucrative furnishing and accessory market. He was convinced that simple, well-constructed and functional furniture could be produced at a reasonable retail price for the general public.

This does not, of course mean that he was adverse to selling furniture that was more elaborate and expensive. Ambrose Heal was above all a pragmatist who was well aware that there was more than one type of consumer for interior products and more than one type of retail strategy and he was more than happy to cater for a cross section of tastes and finances.

However, as far as furniture is concerned, it is the simple, well-constructed styles produced at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century that Heal's is now best remembered.

Heal himself was never just a retailer. He had the final say in all aspects of the business, whether it was graphics for advertising, shop layout, or indeed, the construction of the furniture for sale. Obviously this attention to detail paid off, as Heal's, along with Liberty, had one of the earliest corporate identity's in the retail sector.

Interestingly, Heal was a trained cabinetmaker and he in fact designed the 'St Ives' furniture shown in the advertisement of 1898 that illustrates this article. However, he commissioned Charles Robert Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft workshop to produce the furniture initially, but Heal, always being a man who needed direct control over all aspects of design, production and retailing, and with a careful eye on costs, felt that he could achieve cheaper and better results if he were to set up his own workshop. This he did, having first persuaded Ashbee's chief cabinetmaker to run the new Heal's workshop.

Ambrose Heal, through the Heal retail outlet, was able to produce realistic Arts & Crafts inspired interior furnishings and accessories. That he was able to sell furniture, at a relatively cheap price made it all the more attractive and affordable to the masses, something the Arts & Crafts Guilds, although aspiring to, never managed.

This had always been the dream of the Arts & Crafts movement and it is perhaps ironic that a retailer was able to achieve one of the fundamental aspects of the movements philosophy, simple, well-constructed and functional furniture, affordable to the common man. But perhaps what had really been needed amongst the Guilds and the Arts & Crafts movement in general, was the realistic and above all practical and pragmatic imagination of an Ambrose Heal.

Further reading links:
Victorian and Edwardian Furniture and Interiors: From the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau
The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain (Shire History)
The Arts & Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts Movement (World of Art)
Arts and Crafts Furniture: From Classic to Contemporary
Arts and Crafts Furniture
Arts & Crafts Furniture Anyone Can Make
Arts & Crafts Furniture: Projects You Can Build for the Home (Woodworker's Library)
Authentic Arts & Crafts Furniture Projects
Good Citizens Furniture: The Arts and Crafts Collection at Cheltenham