O Exterior view of the Little Gallery, 5 Ellis Street, Chelsea, London, 1935-39
Muriel Rose Archive © Crafts Study Centre (2006)
green bowls from a Chinese trader in the east end of London, who at that time still operated with an abacus (the bowls cost four pence and would sell in the gallery for one shilling and sixpence) and how she would be set to work in the gallery on Saturdays repairing old patchwork quilts, because Muriel thought someone working with their hands added an air of craft activity to the ambience of the gallery. Muriel Rose’s work on behalf of the craftspeople who were part of the Little Gallery ‘team’ was considerable, and many of them are recognised as pioneers of the craft movement which revitalised crafts in the early 20th century. These included the potters Bernard Leach, Michael Cardew, Nora Braden and Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie, who worked as partners as did the textile artists, Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher. Other exhibitors included Enid Marx, Ethel Mairet, Marianne Straub, Ethel Nettleship, Rachel Crompton, Catherine Cobb, Sydney Cockerell, Fred Partridge, Edward Barnsley, Eric Sharpe, Edward Gardiner and Jean Orage. Sam Smith, who later became well known for his carved and painted wooden figures, was Muriel’s protégé;
MURIEL ROSE: A MODERN CRAFTS LEGACY
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