The Cotswolds were an important centre for the Arts and Crafts Movement so the collection has a strong local base. From the 1920s close links were forged between the local designers, artists and makers and Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum by the then librarian-curator, Daniel Herdman.
Exhibitions of work were held regularly in Cheltenham, Painswick and Chipping Campden. In 1951 a major exhibition of Cotswold Craftsmanship was organised by the art gallery and museum as part of the Festival of Britain.
Arts and Crafts work was acquired by the Art Gallery and Museum from the 1930s. Featured designers include Ernest Gimson and Sidney and Ernest Barnsley, and the husband and wife team, Alfred and Louise Powell, at Sapperton and other villages round Cirencester and, in the north Cotswolds, C R Ashbee and the Guild of Handicraft at Chipping Campden and Gordon Russell in Broadway. There is also a collection of studio pottery based round the work of Michael Cardew and Ray Finch at the Winchcombe Pottery in Gloucestershire.
In 1940 Herdman was able to collect a major archive of Ernest Gimson’s work – plans, drawings. photographs and sketchbooks – from the sale of his widow’s effects. Herdman discovered that the plans were due to be thrown on the bonfire, but managed to rescue them. They formed the basis of the art gallery and museum’s Arts and Crafts archive.
Since the 1970s the collection has been developed to give a national overview including pieces by William Morris, CFA Voysey, M H Baillie Scott, A Romney Green, Eric Gill and Archibald Knox. Also represented are Arts and Crafts designs aimed at the popular market by Liberty’s, Heal and Son and other manufacturers. 1990 we also acquired the major private press library of Emery Walker.
The Arts and Crafts Movement had a tremendous influence on the teaching of art, craft and design throughout the 20th century which survives into the 21st. We also continue to acquire contemporary craft and commission pieces for the galleries to this day, actively continuing the tradition begun by Daniel Herdman.
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The Arts and Crafts Movement Gallery at The Wilson.
Inspiration from the past – Gimson’s photograph collection
Today we can access thousands of images on the internet from museums and heritage organisations across the world. For Gimson it was different. He did a lot of sketching, but he also acquired photos. Many of them were from the collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He had a large number of textile images from lots of different periods and places – from medieval textiles, to 16th and 17th clothes, to textiles from India and the Middle East.
17th century waistcoat
This photograph of an early 17th century waistcoat is from the collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Gimson would have admired the swirling floral embroidery.
Designing in colour and whitework
The Arts and Crafts fashion for embroidery started by Morris & Co. was for brightly coloured, complex naturalistic designs. Gimson created deceptively simple designs often with repeating patterns. He liked to design whitework – white embroidery on a white ground. This fitted with the modest cottage interiors he fashioned for his family and himself. Many are still treasured by Gimson’s family. Some were shown at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, with both his and the maker’s name proudly displayed on them.
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Inspiration from nature
His embroideries celebrate nature. Squirrels, rabbits, owls – even peacocks – sit among flowing leaves, flowers and fruits. Gimson was inspired by the natural world around him, by the old embroideries he had studied and by many other things, including medieval metalwork. He didn’t design embroidery for long after his furniture business started in 1901, but these early embroidery designs inspired his work in other media such as plaster and metalwork.
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A detail of a runner designed by Gimson in the 1890s for his sister Margaret. It shows a falcon among oak leaves and acorns.
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Gimson designed this sampler for his sister-in-law's 13-year-old niece, Phyllis Lovibond, in about 1890. She apparently lived in terror of his visits in case he made her redo it! The finished piece was shown at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society show in 1890, quite an accomplishment for a teenage girl.
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Three embroidered sleeves from the early 17th century. One of Gimson's reference photographs showing the kinds of textiles that inspired his work. These sleeves are in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
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Rubbings from Bishop Wyvill's tomb in Salisbury Cathedral, from Gimson's sketchbook, 1888. He later used these rabbits as a design for a teacosy, which was made by his sister-in-law's sister, Nellie Lovibond.
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This sketch shows Gimson studying nature directly. He used the pea and bean motif several times in his embroidery designs.
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Gimson used the pea motif on the border of this whitework bedspread, made by his sister Margaret between 1900 and 1903.
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The same bedspread appears in this sketch design of bedding for a half tester bed. Margaret made the bedspread, but it's not known if the hanging was made - a much more complex design.
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Gimson took rubbings of his embroidery designs when they had been made. This is a detail from a tablecloth with a pea and bean motif similar to that on the bedspread.
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Gimson designed many embroideries for Margaret to make up. This panel, probably the Pinbury panel mentioned in letters, is decorated with squirrels, oak leaves and acorns - all of which Gimson would have seen near his home at Pinbury.
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Not all of Margaret's work was whitework - this runner from about 1900 is in bright coloured wools on linen, and shows strawberries.
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Not all of his designs were made. Sometimes they were too complex and would have taken his busy relatives many years to complete. This runner with a rose roundel and an owl and falcon was probably never made, but also belonged to Margaret Gimson.
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