Visit to Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler
Tuesday 15 January 2013
Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler was founded in the 1930s and moved to Mayfair in 1944. The visit will be conducted by Roger Jones, a director of the company, and the tour of the showrooms will include a chance to see the company’s current stock of antiques and 20th-century furniture. Roger Jones will talk about how the company’s decorating style has evolved through the years in response to the changing expectations and tastes of clients, and the visit will end with refreshments in Nancy Lancaster’s famous Yellow Room. Ballot 30 November 2012.

Betty Joel: Glamour and Innovation in 1930s Interior Design. A Lecture
6 February 2013
Clive Stewart-Lockhart, Managing Director of Woolley & Wallis, auctioneers in Salisbury, and well-known expert on the BBC Antiques Roadshow will talk about his great-aunt Betty Joel, with whom he forged a close friendship after meeting her in his teens. Joel was one of a handful of very successful and original British women designers, whose work and the company she created embraced the entire field of interior design.

Whitefriars Glass Study Day, Museum of London
Tuesday 19 February 2013
This study day, led by Alex Werner, will begin by focusing on a number of late 19th- and early 20th-century Whitefriars pattern books and designs. Harry Powell’s remarkable workbooks will also be available for study. This will be followed by a visit to the glass showroom in the Victorian Walk gallery where most of the Museum’s pre-1920s Powell glass is on display. After a short bus ride and a pub lunch, the afternoon session in the Museum’s store in Hackney will examine the range of glass designed by James Hogan, Barnaby Powell, William Wilson and Geoffrey Baxter, made at the new factory at Wealdstone from 1923 onwards.

A Private Collection of the New Sculpture in West London
Saturday 9 March 2013
The New Sculpture movement at the end of the 19th century marked a ­renaissance in British sculpture with key figures introducing new approaches to material, scale and subject matter and exploring the boundaries between sculpture and the decorative arts. A private collector has generously agreed to conduct two small groups through his impressive collection of over 100 small sculptures by many of the leading figures of this movement. The collection also includes examples of Mission furniture.

Visit to Martin Brothers Exhibition & the Cuming Museum
Thursday 21 March 2013
Exhibition organiser Anna Harnden will lead the group on a tour around the exhibition offering insights into the eccentric treasures of this rarely shown collection of Martinware. Following the tour, members will be invited for an exclusive behind-the- scenes visit in the collection store to discover some more of the hidden Arts and Crafts period gems of the Southwark Art Collection.

Smallhythe Place & Rye
Saturday 13 April 2013
The celebrated actress Ellen Terry lived at Smallhythe Place for the last 30 years of her life. Now a National Trust property, the half-timbered cottage contains mementoes of her life and career. John Benjamin (of Antiques Roadshow) will talk about the collection in the Barn Theatre in the garden. The group will move on to Rye for a light lunch and an opportunity to explore its ‘quaint’ heritage and notable buildings, many with literary and artistic associations. Details of the programme will be confirmed in the February Newsletter. Limited to 20 members.

Contemporary Silver Study Day at the V&A
Wednesday 1 May 2013
The V&A since its inception has had a contemporary acquisitions policy although it has not always been strictly followed. In the 1970s, fresh attention began to be paid to contemporary design, and nowadays, the majority of acquisitions made by the Museum are in the contemporary sphere. Eric Turner, Curator of 20th century and Contemporary Metalwork will be conducting a handling session for us, focussing on a selection of contemporary silver acquisitions.

A Private Collection of Items from the Omega Workshops
Wednesday 29 May and Friday 31 May 2013
Established by the painter and critic Roger Fry a century ago, the Omega Workshops brought the language of post-impressionist and cubist art to domestic decoration in Edwardian Britain. We are invited to take two tours of a private collection of Omega furniture and ceramics. The owner will talk briefly about collecting and living with the pieces. The collection also includes ceramics decorated by Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Quentin Bell and pieces from the ‘Modern Art for the Table’ exhibition held at Harrods in 1934. Tea will be served in the garden.

Sir Ambrose Heal and Arts & Crafts in Beaconsfield
Tuesday 11 June 2013
Ambrose Heal purchased Baylins Farm in 1919 and it is still owned by his grandson Dr Oliver Heal and his wife Annik. Heal’s restoration of the house and some of its furnishings give a fascinating insight into his taste. We shall have an illustrated talk from Oliver, who is just completing a biography of his grandfather, and a tour of the house, before eating our own picnics, in the gardens if fine. After lunch, local historian Julian Hunt will lead us on a walk round interesting Arts & Crafts houses in Beaconsfield New Town. We may get access to one. Ballot 30 April 2013.

DAS Summer Picnic: Museum of Childhood, Bethnal Green
Saturday 22 June 2013
The V&A Museum of Childhood is home to the nation’s collection of childhood- related objects dating from the 1600s to the present day and has become one of London’s favourite destinations. After the picnic lunch, the Director, Rhian Harris, will give us an introduction and history of the museum. Thereafter we will split into two groups to visit the Doll’s House stores with Sarah Wood, Curator, and the Nursery Furniture with Ester Lutman, Assistant Curator. The day will conclude with the traditional DAS raffle. Guests and children welcome.

Lecture: Two Temple Place – ‘A Perfect Gem’ of late Victorian Art, Architecture and Design
Wednesday 26 June 2013
Art historian and consultant curator Barbara Bryant will speak on her new book, a monographic study of Astor’s building of 1895 on Victoria Embankment: Two Temple Place. Architect John Loughborough Pearson, better known for his Gothic Revival churches, assembled a team of artist-craftsmen to embellish Astor’s Estate Office, with no expense spared.

Eric Gill and Joseph Nuttgens: Sculpture and Stained Glass
Wednesday 17 July 2013
Pigotts Hill is a charming enclave high in the Chiltern Hills. Like his father before him, Joseph Nuttgens has worked on numerous stained glass projects, with John Piper among others. He also now does print-making. He will give us a talk in his studio before we move up the lane to experience the atmosphere of the commune that Eric Gill set up in 1928, until his death in 1940: it is now a music camp run by Dr Nicholas Wheeler-Robinson. We shall be regaled with a home-made lunch, a tour and an intimate talk on the eccentric Gill and his work. Ballot 30 April.

A Weekend in Aldeburgh
Friday 27 – Sunday 29 September 2013
To coincide with the centenary of Benjamin Britten’s birth, this weekend will focus on the seaside town and coastline that inspired his music. We have organised a special tour of the Red House where Britten and Peter Pears lived, now the home of the Britten-Pears Foundation, as well as a guided walk of Aldeburgh and a visit to the concert hall at Snape Maltings. A trip to the early 20th-century fantasy holiday village, Thorpeness, to the north of Aldeburgh, will also form part of the weekend.

Contemporary Designers Studio: Visit and Dialogue
Wednesday 2 October 2013
Join Medeia Cohan, Creative Director of the School for Creative Startups, at the studio of furniture and product designer Tom Cecil, along with designers Jim Rokos and Nick Rawcliffe. We will see the products and projects these emerging designers are working on, hear about their philosophies of design and learn what it takes to establish a successful, creative business – a growing and important part of the British economy – in an informal visit conducive to discussion.

FOREIGN TOURS:

New York: The Decorative Arts in the Gilded Age and After
Monday 15 – Sunday 21 April 2013 (or the following week)
The American decorative arts of the age of Vanderbilt, Frick and Morgan will be the theme for this first study tour to New York by the DAS since the 1970s, which is being organised with the help of local museum curators, librarians and dealers. Works commissioned from such as Herter Brothers, Tiffany, Kimbel & Cabus and others will be studied in the newly remodelled American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the Brooklyn Museum, as well as at the Park Avenue Armory and in private collections. The tour will be based in Manhattan but visits are planned outside the city to an 1860s villa currently undergoing restoration, and to the Hudson Valley. The visit will take in two current exhibitions: on Koloman Moser at the Neue Galerie and on Georges Hoentschel at the Bard Graduate Center.

Amsterdam & Utrecht
Sunday 15 – Thursday 19 September 2013
Please note a change of date for this trip since the advertisement in the last newsletter. A few places may become available: please enquire.

Vienna, Brno & Prague: Early 20th-Century Central Europe
Early May 2014
Harriet Landseer, a resident in the area, is organising for us a six-day study tour to some of the architectural highlights of early 20th-century Central Europe. The programme will begin in Vienna and end in Prague, enabling members to extend their schedules independently for extra visits. The main part of the itinerary will cover the Czech Republic, notably Brno and the Tugendhat, Stiassny and Jurkovic villas.
Expressions of interest should be sent to the organiser.

The following foreign trips are currently proposed:

Autumn 2013 - The Netherlands

Events are for members only. To join the Society go to Membership

THE HEREFORD SCREEN

A talk given to the Decorative Arts Society by J.S.M Scott at the Victoria and Albert Museum on 16th June 2012 - Click here