C F A Voysey

"C.F.A. Voysey (1857-1941) was an architect-designer who advocated honest and thoughtful design, and championed high standards of craftsmanship applied only to the finest materials. The resulting objects -- simple yet elegant, often enhanced by beautiful and symbolic decoration -- were considered revolutionary in their time and continue to enchant audiences today. The first substantial monograph to be published in 20 years, this comprehensive book focuses on Voysey as a designer of furniture, metalwork, and textiles, providing a new analysis of his characteristic motifs and designs. It draws on the greatest public and private collections of his work to give a complete and fully illustrated account of Voysey's output and his vision for domestic life at the turn of the twentieth century. Original drawings and plans, archive photography and images of a vast selection of surviving objects are brought together here in a fresh examination of the Arts and Crafts pioneer. The authors' extensive new research documents the personal and professional relationships that enabled Voysey to become a great and prolific designer. The book draws together new information on how he ran his business; how he promoted, exhibited, and sold his work; who his clients were; who was responsible for manufacturing his designs; and what a Voysey house and interior looked like." -- Publisher's description.

Charles Francis Annesley Voysey could easily have made a career out of pattern design alone, so celebrated were his ingenious textiles and wall coverings. By the mid-1890s, however, he also was hailed as one of Britain's most innovative architects. For the small country houses that were his specialty, he rejected the lavish ornamentation and historical trappings so beloved by the Victorians, relying instead on simple, expressive forms and materials. Voysey's versatility was astonishing, encompassing all manner of furniture, cabinetry, fixtures, and floor and wall coverings. From the shape of a clothes hook to the sweep of a roofline, every form he created was informed by a strong and unorthodox spiritual philosophy that often set Voysey at odds with other designers, even as he rose to become a leading force. His wallpapers and textiles, in particular, reveal Voysey's complex personality - his lifelong love of England's flora and fauna, his belief that a reverent observation of the natural world might hasten humanity's spiritual evolution, and his unusually whimsical (and occasionally wicked) sense of humour. Today his images are as beloved as they were then. In C. F. A. Voysey: Architect, Designer, Individualist, Anne Stewart O'Donnell traces this extraordinary creative output while painting a vivid picture of Voysey's character.

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During the 1890s Voysey's reputation spread across Europe and America, only to be revived in the 1930s by John Betjeman, Nikolaus Pevsner and others in Britain, when he was hailed as a precursor of the Modern Movement. He was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 1940 at the age of eighty-three.

C.F.A. Voysey is regarded as one of the pioneers of the Modern movement of architecture and design, and one of the most influential and important of all the 19th and early 20th century British designers. He designed over 60 houses throughout England, from small cottages and gate lodges to suburban houses and substantial country house commissions. Voysey was the ‘complete designer’ – he designed all manner of objects, from wallpaper to cutlery, textiles to furniture, war memorials to stained glass windows, and bookplates. As a leading figure of the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain his fame and influence extended to the United States to the next generation of American Arts and Crafts architects and early Modernists, notably Greene & Greene, Bernard Maybeck and Frank Lloyd Wright. In Europe, fundamental aspects of Voysey’s design approach were embraced by the Dutch De Stijl group; during the 1920s, and eventually also by the German Bauhaus movement. Voysey was renowned also for his beautiful watercolour drawings. He retained the vast majority of his own drawings throughout his career, and late in life arranged for these to be donated to the Royal Institute of British Architects.

An elegant and informative gift book devoted to designs by C. F. A. Voysey that incorporate birds, animals, and plants. Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857–1941) is, with William Morris, one of the most enduringly popular designers of the Arts and Crafts Movement. A practicing architect, Voysey also designed a broad range of applied arts objects, from furniture, ceramics, and metalwork to wallpaper, carpets, tiles, and fabrics. His pattern designs, created from the 1880s to the early 1930s, are among his best- known works today. His wallpaper and textile designs are characterized by simple, stylized, rhythmic patterns that base their motifs on forms found in the natural world. Plants abound, but so too do birds and animals, represented as silhouettes or in soft pastel shades. This elegant, accessibly priced volume offers a wealth of colorful designs by Voysey in which birds and animals are the principal motifs. Written by Karen Livingstone, a published expert on Voysey and the Arts and Crafts Movement, this book brings together not only completed patterns but also working drawings in pencil and watercolor. Voysey’s Birds and Animals will both inform and delight, appealing to a broad readership of museum visitors and lovers of art and design.

Light-filled houses built with an emphasis on natural materials by award-winning Southern architect Jeffrey Dungan. Following in the tradition of populist architects Gil Schafer and Bobby McAlpine, Dungan designs new traditional houses for today—houses with clean lines, made with stone and wood, that carry an air of lasting beauty and that are made to be handed on to future generations. In his first book, Dungan shares his advice and insight for creating these “forever” houses and explores eight houses in full, from a beach house on the Gulf Coast to a farmhouse in the Southern countryside to a family home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. All speak of authenticity, timelessness, and lived history that reveals itself through the rich patinas and natural textures that come with age. Layered in between are thematic essays and imagery celebrating the importance of elements such as light, stone, and rooflines in creating a home.