british – interior design

Nigel Coates featured image

He co-founded Branson Coates Architecture with Doug Branson in 1985 before opening his architecture and design studio in 2006. He was a partner in the Branson Coates architecture and design studio and the founder of the radical NATO (Narrative Architecture Today, established in London in 1983) design group (established in 1985).Read More →

Cecil Beaton featured image

The house he occupied until 1945 at Ashcombe, Wiltshire, near friend Edith Olivier was decorated with limited funds using exaggerated baroque furniture. The walls of the ‘Circus Bedroom’ were painted by visiting artist friends, including Rex Whistler and Oliver Messel, in a kind of Surrealistic overstatement.Read More →

Mantel Clock designed by C.F.A Voysey (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)

Charles Francis Annesley Voysey was a renowned architect and designer of modern homes, bridging the gap between the Arts and Crafts and modernist movements. Voysey designed small and medium-sized houses and furniture, influenced by Modernism and Japanese art.Read More →

Claude Flight featured image

Flight is best known for establishing the linocut method of printmaking. He felt by promoting the use of cheap and easily obtained new material. He was making it possible for the masses to be exposed to art. He saw in it the potentiality of a truly democratic art form.Read More →

George Sheringham Portrait

He was born in London and had a brother, Hugh, an Angling Editor of The Field. He attended the King’s School, Gloucester, the Slade School of Fine Art (1899–1901), and the Sorbonne, Paris (1904–1906).Read More →

Curtain by Colefax and Fowler - 1950s V & A

John Fowler was a British interior decorator known for his elegant and sophisticated style and worked on many high-profile projects, including the Queen’s private apartments at Buckingham Palace. Fowler’s style, scholarly eye, and recognition made him a valuable asset to the National Trust, inspiring conservationists today.Read More →

Ideal Home Exhibition 1908

The Daily Mail newspaper sponsored the Ideal Home Exhibition (from 1908). These shows provide an insight into popular taste and aspiration across all facets of domestic design and organisation in Britain.Read More →

Zandra Rhodes featured image

Zandra Rhodes studied lithography and printing at Medway College before going on to the Royal College of Art to study textiles, graduating in 1964 during the height of the pop movement. She made a paper wedding dress that cost less than two shillings, motivated by this trend and the work of painter Roy Lichtenstein in particular (about 7 new pence). In 1967, paper clothing was all the rage: it was the ultimate representation of disposable apparel.Read More →

Sir Terence Conran featured image

From cl950, he worked for Rayon Centre, London, and, 1951— 52, as an interior designer for Dennis Lennon; designed 1955 ‘The Orrery’ coffee-bar, London in the late 1950s, as a freelance designer. Read More →

Pattern from Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones

Owen Jones was a British architect and ornamental designer. He studied at the Royal Academy in London and under the architect L. Vuillamy (1825–31).Read More →

Sibyl Colefax featured image

At Onslow Square and Argyll House, she opened salons. Lady Oxford, Lady Asquith, Lady Cunard, and Lady Ottoline Morrell were her rivals as hostess. She continued to entertain on a small scale at her house, Lord North Street, London, after her husband Arthur Colefax died in 1936.Read More →

Oliver Messel featured image

He met Rex Whistler at the Slade, with whom he began making papier-maché masks. These piqued the interest of Sergei Diaghilev, who commissioned Messel to create masks for the Ballets Russes production Zéphyre et Flore in 1925. For his 1928 play This Year of Grace, Noel Coward commissioned sets and costumes.Read More →

Edwin Lutyens featured image

In 1887, he joined the firm George and Peto, where he met Herbert Baker, later becoming a colleague in New Delhi. Richard Norman Shaw and Philip Webb influenced him.Read More →