2019 marks the 300th birthday of Thomas Chippendale, one of this country’s greatest craftsmen and designers.
The Hepworth Wakefield collaborated with Nostell and artist and designer Giles Round to explore Chippendale’s legacy and the importance of the domestic setting as one where art and design are brought into conversation.
Chippendale is often referred to as the first interior designer where in properties such as Nostell, Wakefield’s National Trust house and garden, he designed whole room schemes, sourcing wallpapers to basic fixtures and fittings. His entrepreneurialism is exemplified by the publishing of his The Director – a catalogue of his designs that prospective buyers could use to commission pieces of their own.
At The Hepworth Wakefield, Round examined the gallery’s own history as the former Wakefield Art Gallery, which was sited in a domestic property in the city centre. In 1959, director Helen Kapp organised an exhibition called Living Today where she invited eight architects to refurnish and redecorate the galleries, as if they were once again inhabited domestic spaces.
On display were design objects from ceramics and textiles to glass and furniture that were shown in the 1959 exhibition and are still in production, alongside examples of the best hand-crafted and industrially-produced objects being made today. In the spirit of Chippendale’s ‘The Director’, there is an itemised list of particular objects which were on display for visitors to purchase at the gallery.
An exhibition ran alongside Giles Round: The Director at National Trust property Nostell.
About Giles Round
Giles Round (b.1976) often draws on the worlds on craft and industrial design to examine how we read objects differently according to the context in which they are presented. His installations often unfold as spaces for potential habitation, allowing the viewer to project themselves into the work.
