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Author Topic: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?  (Read 145840 times)

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Offline aa

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Re: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?
« Reply #30 on: September 26, 2007, 09:12:24 PM »
I'm not so sure about Annette Meech - but she was/is primarily an art glass designer.

Where do you draw the line? There are some important studios that produce(d) domestic glassware. It just depends what your criteria are.
Just because it was hand made doesn't mean it wasn't significant.

Cowdy Glass (Pauline Solven) and Lindean Mill (David Kaplan and Annica Sandstrom) spring to mind, among others as producing some outstanding work. However, the entire output of the whole lifespan of those studios is significantly less than what the Arc group produces per hour!

Annette Meech also designed a range of tableware (wine glasses) for Cowdy.

If you are trying to establish who the important designers are, I would advise against using criteria that include either scale of production or method of production and try to judge purely on an aesthetic basis.



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Offline Frank

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Re: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?
« Reply #31 on: September 26, 2007, 10:26:53 PM »
I think Adam makes important points (for new members: Adam is a glass artist/designer/gallery of international repute.) and I think amply illustrates that this a subject of incredible depth.

The collective reactions to Stephen's/Nazeing Museum original requests shows that glass collectors, researchers and makers have a lot to say on the subject. But to address the original question it is possibly unhelpful and clearly it will not be possible to just make a list of the 'designers' we know about. I would suggest that a new thread be created to try and explore the subject in greater depth to try and get a better picture of 20th century glass design with a focus on British Glass. (Wider might be asking too much?). Perhaps this could lead to a list of people and what their impact was.

Offline sph@ngw

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Re: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?
« Reply #32 on: September 27, 2007, 03:41:59 PM »
Great idea Frank, I second that!
Stephen

Offline johnphilip

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Re: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?
« Reply #33 on: September 27, 2007, 04:25:03 PM »
I thought Keith Murray was a Kiwi,have i got it wrong,

Offline Cathy B

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Re: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?
« Reply #34 on: September 29, 2007, 01:33:45 AM »
Keith Murray was definitely a Kiwi, but he did all of his work in the UK. He's too important to omit, I think.

Offline Bernard C

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Re: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?
« Reply #35 on: September 29, 2007, 04:37:09 AM »
Quote from: aa
... If you are trying to establish who the important designers are, I would advise against using criteria that include either scale of production or method of production and try to judge purely on an aesthetic basis.

How?   You will get a different view from everyone.   Ideally importance should be based on something that can be evaluated, albeit very roughly, like success in monetary terms.   And I think there is a good case for including influential innovative designs and techniques as well, whether or not they were financially successful in their original form, as long as eventually they led to successful designs.

On a minor point, I wish I could see some distinction between the 1930s emergence of signed designer goods as a marketing strategy and what is being discussed here, important designers.   There is some overlap, but they are not the same.

Bernard C.  8)
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Offline aa

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Re: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?
« Reply #36 on: September 29, 2007, 09:37:18 AM »
Bernard
Here is a good example: http://www.bernard.cavalot.btinternet.co.uk/dj7cp2_view.jpg

Super jam pot. Designer unknown. Quantity produced unknown. Quote from you:  "I think this little pot was probably a trade sample from a projected range that was subsequently rejected. Hence its rarity - I have not found anyone who has ever seen anything like it before."

Quite possibly should be in  a museum. It doesn't matter how many were produced or how it was produced.

Many great designs and designers are/were not financially successful and often it can be difficult to find examples remaining.



Hello & Welcome to the Board! Sometimes my replies are short & succinct, other times lengthy. Apologies in advance if they are not to your satisfaction; my main concern is to be accurate for posterity & to share my limited knowledge
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Introduction to Glassblowing course:a great way to spend an afternoon http://www.zestgallery.com/glass.

Offline johnphilip

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Re: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?
« Reply #37 on: September 29, 2007, 10:05:06 AM »
I am happy to include Keith Murray as i have three of his decanters all with glasses including one very early one.i also have a Paul Nash decanter maybe we should include him.

Offline Bernard C

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Re: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?
« Reply #38 on: September 29, 2007, 11:26:44 AM »
Nice try, Adam, but you couldn't have chosen a worse example for this topic, as it's Fostoria's American pattern, albeit made by Davidson, probably from a Fostoria mould loaned to Davidson for evaluation purposes.   Nevertheless you made me laugh — important as this topic was getting much too serious.
Bernard C.  :love:
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Offline Frank

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Re: Who are the important British Domestic Glass designers of the 20th century?
« Reply #39 on: September 29, 2007, 11:40:02 AM »
Moderators can you perhaps execute this suggestion, the original thread could retain a list of names, mentioned so far and the rest of the posts split into a new thread stickied to the top. Give it 6 months then start others on other countries...  :)


... I would suggest that a new thread be created to try and explore the subject in greater depth to try and get a better picture of 20th century glass design with a focus on British Glass. (Wider might be asking too much?). Perhaps this could lead to a list of people and what their impact was.

Great idea Frank, I second that!
Stephen

 

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