Studio: international art (48.1910)

The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society

CARTOON FOR SGRAFFITO PANEL

BY HEYWOOD SUMNER

decorative workers seceded from the movement
and took counsel together. Mr. W. A. S. Benson
and one or two others organized a provisional
committee, chiefly composed of members of the
Art Workers' Guild, and plans for holding a first
exhibition of decorative art were soon set on foot.
The new association was at first known as " The
Combined Arts." The title of "The Arts and
Crafts Society," afterwards adopted, was suggested
by Mr. Cobden-Sanderson, who was also respon-
sible for the rule of printing in the catalogues the
names of the designers and of the actual execu-
tants of works, as well as those of the firms by
whom they were exhibited. Unfortunately this
excellent rule caused considerable friction at the
Society's first exhibition, and certain firms of
decorators declined to contribute because it was
enforced.

The New Gallery, then new indeed, for it had
been in existence only a few months, was engaged
for the first exhibition, which was opened on the
ist of October, 1888—somewhat prematurely, for
it was barely complete. Mr. Walter Crane, who
had been chosen as President of the Arts and
Crafts Society, wrote an introduction to the cata-
logue, in which he claimed that, as the true root
and basis of all art lies in the handicrafts, art
should be recognised in the humblest object and
material, and felt to be as valuable in its way as
the more highly rewarded pictorial skill. The
President's introduction was accompanied by brief
introductory essays, written, as he pointed out,
by men whose names were associated with the
subjects of which they treated, not only in the
literary sense, but as designers and workers. Mr.

CARTOON FOR SGRAFFITO PANEL AT ST. JOHN'S
CHURCH, MILES PLATTING, MANCHESTER

BY HEYWOOD SUMNER

299