Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Sweet and Lofty ThingsAuthor(s): Paul LarmourSource: Fortnight, No. 372, Supplement: Fin de Siecle (Jul. - Aug., 1998), pp. 5-7Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25559531 .

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Sweet and lofty

things

Paul Larmour

The decorative arts in Ulster at the turn off the century

In common with many other regions of Europe, Ulster

witnessed an upsurge of activity in the decorative and

applied arts at the turn of the last century. Much of it

resulted from the impact of the Arts and Crafts

movement, mainly under the direct aegis of the Arts

and Crafts Society of Ireland, but not all of it was

necessarily inspired in that way. The period saw a host of men and women in

various parts of the province active in what were

sometimes called the minor arts - wood-carving,

embroidery, metal work and enamelling, stained glass, book illustration and graphics, and the arts of design and craftsmanship in general. The people involved

ranged from amateur rural wood-carvers or metal

workers to students in the School of Art in Belfast

training as professional designers for the linen

industry. They also included some well-known artists,

the best of whose work was admired internationally as well as many anonymous workers in the more

commercialised firms.

The styles that were employed ranged over the

whole gamut of historic ornament, but two which

stand out were the Art Nouveau style, common to all

the western world at the time, and the Celtic style, which was more or less particular to Ireland and could

be seen as a distinctly native style. Thus there are

both national and international shades to the

decorative arts of the period here.

The wood-carving schools established in various

parts of Co Donegal by Everina Sinclair of Holyhill, Co Tyrone were typical of many set up by

philanthropic women throughout Ireland in the 1880s

and 1890s. The idea was to give people in remote

areas something worthwhile to do and at the same

time help them to improve themselves materially. The

result was a tremendous output of very competently embellished objects, the best of which were sent to

international exhibitions as far away as Chicago in

1893. Whereas rural wood-carving schools for men

and needlework schools for women were fairly

widespread, the art metalwork school set up in 1892

in Fivemiletown, Co Tyrone, by Mary Montgomery of Blessingbourne

was unique. The workers, all men

and boys, made a wide range of domestic furnishings in copper and brass, from mirror frames to fireplace

fenders, including inkwells, candlesticks, tankards, tea

trays, newspaper racks and electric light sconces.

Some of the most distinctive were those decorated

with birds and animals such as parrots, owls and

squirrels. Peacocks with great trailing tail feathers

were a particular favourite set against the leafy

background that was characteristic of most of the

school's designs. The main northern-based decorative arts studio

in Ireland at the turn of the century was the Irish

Decorative Art Association, established in Belfast in

1894. It comprised mainly a group of women led by Eta Lowry and Mina Robinson who specialised in

pokerwork but were also involved with needlework,

hand-tooled leather book covers, over-painting of

pottery, and the designing of cards and calendars,

much of it in Celtic style. They also developed schemes

of decoration for steamer saloons and panels for

railway carriages. Also based in Belfast was the School of Art. From

its foundation as a Government School of Design in

1849, there had been a strong leaning toward design and the decorative arts reflecting the special needs of

the city as the great ? indeed the only

?

manufacturing centre in Ireland. Under George

Trobridge in the 1890s and Robert Dawson in the early 1900s the school's interest in ornamental and

decorative design was shown in its contributions to

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Everina Sinclair's woodcarving class, Bonny glen, Co Donegal 1890.

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Art Nouveau style book illustration for The Tain' drawn by John Campbell, 1907.

exhibitions of the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland

as well as great international expositions such as the

World Fair at St Louis in 1904. 'The most important

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question in regard to any School of Art is whether its

operations are of benefit to local industries', wrote

Trobridge in 1901. So it was that many of the principal

designers in Belfast were former students of the School

of Art. Robert Woods, for example, became the

principal designer for the damask firm J.S. Brown 8c

Son, and William Douglas chief designer for the

stained glass firm of Ward 8c Partners. Both were very

accomplished designers in Art Nouveau style. Of individual craftworkers and artists, perhaps the

most accomplished from Ulster at the turn of the

century were Mary Houston, Joseph Doran and John

Campbell. Houston came from Coleraine originally; she then studied first at the School of Art in Dublin

before moving on to study in London where she

eventually settled, but she maintained links with home

and frequently exhibited her plasterwork and

repousse metalwork with the Belfast-based Irish

Decorative Art Association. Some of her student

designs were shown at the famous Paris Exhibition of

1900.

Joseph Doran, who trained at the Belfast School

of Art was another talented designer who left to

further his studies in London and subsequendy found

employment there as a designer of wallpapers and

textiles. He also maintained links with home, however,

and a very fine gilt-brass jewel box of champleve enamel work which he made around 1905 can be seen

in the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.

John Campbell from Belfast, who trained in the

local school of art, was another accomplished individual to emerge at this period. He was a book

illustrator and graphic artist who worked

predominantly in black and white. He was dedicated

to creating an image of a glorious Celtic past with his

depictions of legendary and mythological figures ornamented in Celtic style and treated in an Art

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Nouveau spirit. His series of illustrations for The Tain

in 1907 set him apart as one of the most imaginative and individual artists of the Irish Revival.

Two other names that should be mentioned are

the sculptress Rosamond Praeger and the stained glass artist Wilhelmina Geddes. Of the several Irish

sculptors who crossed the line from fine art to

decorative art at the turn of the century, Rosamond

Praeger from Holywood was the one who did so most

consistently: aside from conventional figure groups and portrait busts her work also encompassed relief

panels, memorial plaques, and some architectural

carving. Wilhelmina Geddes' main achievements,

when she had emerged as the most powerful artistic

talent in the Irish Arts and Crafts movement, date from

somewhat later than our period here, but it is worth

recalling that her career started in the School of Art

in Belfast in 1903.

Aside from stained glass artworks created by individual artists, there was a thriving trade during the first decade or so of this century in decorative

leaded glass, mainly for domestic settings but also for

glazing of churches and public buildings. Such local

firms as Ward 8c Partners, Campbell Brothers, J.R.

Carlisle, Clokey & Co. vied with each other to meet

the demand for pretty leaded patterns ? some in a

very effective Art Nouveau style ? in the fanlights

and bay windows of the burgeoning number of

suburban villas of the time.

George Morrow & Son was one prominent firm

in Belfast which was capable of going beyond the mere

provision of decorative glazing into the wider field of

interior decoration, fitting up complete rooms with

ornamented mantelpieces, painted wall friezes, and

quaint furniture, as their stall at the Cork

International Exhibition of 1902 demonstrated.

There were many other artists and firms worthy of note, among them such Belfast-based names as

John Vinycomb, heraldic artist and designer of

bookplates; Sharman D. Neill, whose firm in Donegall Place was

responsible for some of the few works of

Irish silver to be designee! in Art Nouveau style; the

illuminating artists Charles Braithwaite and Joseph

Dempsey; and the architectural carvers James Winter

and Daniel Gilliland. They all played their part in

establishing what was clearly a 'Golden Age' in the

history of art in Ulster.

Dr Paul Larmour is Reader and Senior lecturer in the

Department of Architecture at Queen's University, Belfast. His book The Arts and Crafts Movement in Ireland'

published by Friar's Bush Press, Belfast, in 1992, was the

pioneering study in the field and is an essential reference work for anyone interested in the decorative arts in Ireland.

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On>/ stair window in Art Nouveau style in a house in the Malone area of Belfast, 1903.

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