Arts & Crafts Cupboard by Charles Rennie Mackintosh - 20th Century

Description

This remarkably well-crafted wooden cupboard is created by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in the first half of the 20th century. It’s an atypical design, exemplifying a balance between contemporary and timeless. The upper part of this cupboard features two doors, one of which can be folded. Behind these doors, there is plenty of storage space. The lower part is equipped with shelves, ideal to display items such as books, art and other curiosities. At the bottom, there’s one big drawer. This piece would also be ideal in a dining area, displaying your favourite tableware.

While Charles Rennie Mackintosh (7 June 1868, Glasgow – 10 December 1928, London) is best known for his architectural works, including the Glasgow School of Art, Hill House and House for an Art Lover, he also designed furniture. Perhaps he might have been Scotland's most famous architect. He was a designer in the Post-Impressionist movement and also the main representative of Art Nouveau in the United Kingdom. He had considerable influence on European design. A pioneer of modernism the architect, artist and designer created his own aesthetic by blending numerous influences from Art Nouveau to Asian painting.

The Arts and Crafts movement emerged during the late Victorian period in England, the most industrialized country in the world at that time. Anxieties about industrial life fueled a positive revaluation of handcraftsmanship and precapitalist forms of culture and society. Arts and Crafts designers sought to improve standards of decorative design, believed to have been debased by mechanization, and to create environments in which beautiful and fine workmanship governed. The Arts and Crafts movement did not promote a particular style, but it did advocate reform as part of its philosophy and instigated a critique of industrial labor; as modern machines replaced workers, Arts and Crafts proponents called for an end to the division of labor and advanced the designer as craftsman.

GW3065