Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo

Bookcover of Arthur Mackmurdo,Wren's City Churches,1883: often cited amongincunabulaofArt Nouveau

Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo(12 December 1851 – 15 March 1942) was a progressiveEnglisharchitect and designer, who influenced theArts and Crafts Movement,notably through theCentury Guild of Artists,which he set up in partnership withHerbert Hornein 1882. He was the pioneer of theModern Style (British Art Nouveau style)and in turn globalArt Nouveaumovement.

Early life

Mackmurdo was the son of a wealthy chemical manufacturer. He was educated atFelsted School,and was first trained under the architect T. Chatfield Clarke, from whom he claimed to have learnt nothing. Then, in 1869, he became an assistant to the Gothic Revival architectJames Brooks.In 1873, he visitedJohn Ruskin's School of Drawing, and accompanied Ruskin toItalyin 1874.He stayed on to study inFlorencefor a while; despite the influence of Ruskin, theItalian architecturehe was most impressed by was that of theRenaissance.

Career

In 1874 he opened his own architectural practice at 28 Southampton Street, in central London.

Chair designed by Mackmurdo, the back panel of which has been seen as a precursor ofArt Nouveaudesign.

In 1882, Mackmurdo founded the Century Guild of Artists with his friend and fellow architectHerbert Percy Horne.Others associated with the Guild included most prominentlySelwyn Image,but also Clement Heaton,William De Morgan,Heywood Sumner,Christopher Whall,Charles Winstanley,William Kellock Brown,George Esling and John Ruskin's protegee, the sculptorBenjamin Creswick.It was one of the more successful craft guilds of its time. It offered complete furnishing of homes and buildings, and its artists were encouraged to participate in production as well as design; Mackmurdo himself mastered several crafts, includingmetalworkingandcabinet making.

In 1884, the guild showed a display in the form of a music room at the Health Exhibition in London; the stand was shown, with variations, at subsequent exhibitions in Manchester and Liverpool. It incorporated two of Mackmurdo's favourite motifs. One was foliage twisted into sinuous curves.Nikolaus Pevsnerdescribed Mackmurdo's use of such foliage on the title page of the designer's ownWren's City Churches(1883) as "the first work of art nouveau which can be traced", identifying its main influences asRossettiandBurne-Jones,and ultimately, through them,William Blake.

The second motif was the use of thin square columns, topped with flat squares instead of capitals. These columns influenced the furniture designs ofC.F.A. Voysey,and, through him,Charles Rennie Mackintosh.Mackmurdo used them architecturally on his own house at 8 Private Road, Enfield (1887), and on a house for the artistMortimer Menpes,at 25Cadogan Gardens,Chelsea (1893–94), where he incorporated them into a kind ofQueen Anne style.

Mackmurdo made a major donation to the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, which is an important repository of the work of the Century Guild.

List of buildings

• 6 (Halcyon) (1874–6, now demolished) and8 (Brooklyn)(1883) Private Road, Enfield
• 16 Redington Road, Hampstead (1889)
• 12 Hans Road, Chelsea (1894)
• 25 Cadogan Gardens, Chelsea (1893–4)
• 109–13, Charterhouse Street (1900)
• Great Ruffins, Great Totham (1904)
• Village Hall, Great Totham (1929-1930)

References

• Victorian Web:A.H. Mackmurdo, an Overview ( "Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo" throughout)
• Pamela Todd,The Arts and Crafts Companion:Introduction: Philosophy & Background
• Lambourne, Lionel (1980)Utopian Craftsmen: The Arts and Crafts Movement from the Cotswold to Chicago.London. Astragal Books

External links

• Works by or about Arthur Heygate Mackmurdoat theInternet Archive