CRUSADERS OFARTANDDESIGN 1920–1970
RuthArtmonsky
INTRODUCTION
‘The prejudice against modern art is, I am convinced, the result of a confined vision or a narrow range of sensibility. People forget that the artist, (if he deserves the name) has the acutest sense of us all, and he can only be true to himself and to his function if he expresses that acuteness to the final edge. We are without courage, without freedom, without passion and joy if we refuse to follow where he leads.’
Art Now Herbert Read
When, some fourteen years ago, I made my first essay, with some temerity, in writing about art and design, the book was on Jack Beddington of Shell, who I described as a ‘footnote man’ – someone whose name cropped up frequently in the lives of artists but who had not been given adequate recognition of his sponsorship, which had help build their reputations.
I had intended to go on to get other such shadowy figures acknowledgement for their, behind the scenes, contribution to the development of art and design in Britain, but have been led astray, this way and that, by, at the time, more enticing subjects.
Now, before it is too late, I am trying to do in one volume what I had planned to do in a series. Rather than
Opposite: Theyre Lee-Elliott design for Imperial Airways c.1935
calling my subjects ‘footnote’ people, when some of them, particularly Herbert Read, were definitely not, I have used the word ‘crusader’, as they were all on a mission, consciously or not, to raise the status of artists and designers, and the role of art in society.
I had thought, having a statistical background, that I might demonstrate, in diagrammatic form, how my crusaders did not work alone, but in a variety of combinations and permutations. However having once tried to illustrate the intimacies of the Bloomsbury crowd in a diagram and ending up with something resembling a badly knotted macramé, here I have given the reader a time chart (on the end papers) of what was going on, on the surface, in the sphere of art and design, as a result of my crusaders energies and enthusiasms.
War at Sea, Puffin No.2, 1940
Great Deeds of War, Puffin No.8, 1941
GORDON RUSSELL 1892–1980
‘One of those peculiarly English geniuses who are not quite given the recognition they deserve.’
Terence Conran on Gordon Russell.
Gordon Russell’s career, from a young diffident lad with only a basic education to the man responsible for setting the country’s design standards, was achieved by a puritanical work ethic, an insatiable curiosity, a creative mind, a deft hand, a dogged determination, and a sensitivity to others; a remarkable combination of qualities.
Russell, although born in London, was brought up in the Cotswolds, near Chipping Camden, an area he was to live in for most of his life. His father, who had become a brewer’s agent, captivated by one of the inns he was selling to, decided to be poacher turned gamekeeper, or vice versa, and bought it. The Lygon Arms, in Broadway, was where Russell grew up and the hotel was to be a major factor in the development of his career.
Russell senior decided to furnish the hotel with old furniture and Russell junior was soon applying his mind and his hands to the challenge of restoration; what started off as the hotel’s repair shop morphed into a shop selling antiques and then its own home
Opposite: Portrait of Gordon Russell by Carel Weight.
grown design furniture.
Russell taught himself the designer’s trade by trial and error and by contact with local craftsmen –
‘As far as I remember I didn’t attempt for it to look either old or new; I was just trying to solve a problem, finding out the snags for myself, and endeavouring to solve them.’
Russell’s embryonic career as a furniture designer was interrupted by the onset of WWI in which he served in the Worcestershire Regiment, was commissioned and wounded, but character out, was awarded the Military Cross.
Back in Broadway he turned the repair shop into a production area plus showroom. Russell’s brother, Dick, was sent off to train as an architect to give the firm a professional basis; and, in order to ensure he had a good team of craftsmen, Russell set up his own evening classes. By the mid-1930s he had a shop in Wigmore Street in London’s West End, and his furniture was
CRUSADERS
Hans schleger’s logo development for the Council of Industrial design, 1950s
with at close quarters and not only must it give efficient service but it must also give pleasure.’
The Utility Scheme ended in 1952, but well before that Russell had taken up another potentially even more influential government appointment. In 1944 Russell became a member of the newly formed Council of Industrial Design. The idea of a national body to promote higher standards in industrial design had popped up occasionally prior to the war but now Hugh Dalton was to see it through to actuality. Russell was one of twenty four members, only three being actual designers – Francis Meynell, Allan Walton along with Russell. With post-war exports very much in mind the Council declared its aim –
‘to promote by all practical means the improvement of design in the products of British industry.’
‘By all practical means’ was to include sourcing information and advice, mounting exhibitions, establishing design centres and training. The Council’s initial Director was C.S.Leslie but when he was recalled to the Treasury in 1947, Russell was appointed in his stead. Leslie had done much to get the Council established, facing ‘sniping from all sides’ as other government departments and agencies watched on jealously, viewing it as a waste of money, whilst manufacturers were wary of possible government controls. Russell termed his reign as ‘hazardous’ but ‘stimulating’ – Magazine of the Council of Industrial design, october 1955
CRUSADERS
The Story of Furniture, first published as a Picture Puffin No.50 in 1947
Republished by the Gordon Russell Trust 2008
‘As one who has spent much of his life trying to do something like the equivalent of pushing a tank uphill I have discovered that there are occasions when holding one’s own can count as progress.’
Russell, as a Council member, had been involved in mounting the Council’s first major exhibition – ‘Britain Can Make It’ – and it was he who had suggested it send out a patriotic and uplifting message. He was on the subcommittee that selected the items to be shown, and it was he who wrote the chapter of furniture in Design 46 , a survey of the designs that had been displayed, along with a subsequent Council leaflet How to Buy Furniture.
As Director Russell was inevitably involved in an altogether more ambitious project that was countrywide – ‘The Festival of Britain’. He had to argue from the start for the Council to retain some design control over the whole event, and this it did by drawing up a stock list of well designed goods, and for taking over responsibility for the selection, collection and return of some 10,000 items drawn from some 3500 companies. It was Russell who edited the Council’s Design in the Festival summary of what had been shown.
Running the Council Russell built up a solid team to support him and created an atmosphere that was inclusive and co-operative rather than controlling. He sought links with all relevant group – design societies, manufacturers and retailers. During his reign the Council set up the Design Centre in the Haymarket close to Piccadilly, which served not only as a centre of information and advice but as the administrative offices of the Council. It mounted
continuous displays of contemporary design as well as special exhibitions. The stock list that had been compiled for the Festival of Britain provided the basis for building up and continually monitoring a Design Index – examples of ‘good’ design which could be used by all-comers. A symbol was devised that manufacturers could display on their products – ‘as selected by the Design Council’.
Under Russell’s imaginative twelve year leadership the Council launched ‘design weeks’ across the country, had travelling exhibitions, ran short courses for buyers and sales people, built up a library of photographs and slides, had lecture panels and put out publications including its monthly magazine Design – amongst a myriad of other design related activities.
At the Council, Russell’s role had inevitably been largely a political and public relations one. He was not only frequently called upon to open events and to talk about the Council’s work at home but travelled widely abroad, carrying the crusading for good design to such varied places as Canada, Russia and Sierra Leone.
About all this activity he was prone to use the word ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ so it is not easy to tease out to what extent he was involved at an operational level, at the coal face. Although a quiet man he recorded how his mission would fire him up –
‘I found it stimulating to go into a room of hostile people, say what was in my mind, listen to and answer criticism and leave them apparently stunned by the further proof of idiocy on my part, or convinced…’
whenever an opportunity for publicity arose, and generally make much of him, they would quarrel frequently over her promotional material selling his designs, an activity of which he disapproved, but which, after all, was her role at Monotype.
Warde’s championing of Morison, who had joined Monotype before she had, was of a different character; their relationship was sometimes described as that of master and pupil, sometimes as designer and publicist. More often she was seen to be Morison’s lieutenant in the renaissance of British typography in the first half of the 20th century. Her references to him were effusive; she once spoke of him at a DIA meeting as ‘the greatest living authority on typographic design’. James Moran in his book on Morison wrote –
‘…the subtle and continuous publicity by Morison’s close companion…contributed to his effectiveness and success.’
That people took notice of what Warde said and wrote was because she earned respect – she researched her subject widely and had an extensive knowledge of the history of typography, which won her brownie points with academics; yet she also had the technical know-how of a printing shop which won over the doubting diffident and sexist jobbing printer; and to this she could add her streetwise understanding of the commercial factors influencing the buyers of print, let
alone their egos; all this topped by her sheer joy and aesthetic appreciation of print which was infectious to all – printer, buyer, and reader.
D.B.Updike, the American expert wrote of her ‘gallant service to the betterment of typography’, suggesting that it was Warde’s spirit as much as what she did that influenced others. On her death Monotype devoted a complete Recorder to her, recording her writing and lecturing –
‘What words they are: so rich and varied in colour, so logical and precise in definition, so meaningful and imaginative in metaphor. They are perfectly fitted to cloth the wealth of ideas which shot through her mind like rays of the sun, illuminating the everyday scene for all to see.’
The Type Directors’ Club, of which she was the first female member, set up a Beatrice Warde Scholarship, for ‘young women demonstrating typographic skill’, still in existence to this day. After the elite club of printers and publishers, the Double Crown Club, had had its 200th dinner, which Warde (its oldest non-member) had attended, it was proposed she might be made an ‘honorary member extraordinary’, which was eventually agreed. She died before this was acted upon; she would have been the first woman member of the club, albeit an honorary one. Henry Bullen would have been proud!
