Christopher Dresser
The Victorian & Albert Museum
Thursday 9 September-Sunday 5 December 2004
Fab Guy
In traditional V&A inimitability, this autumn's Christopher
Dresser exhibition offers a look at the origin of home improvement
TV.
He could do your garden and redesign your house before the time of television, all with more thrift and ingenuity than we know today. Christopher Dresser (1834 - 1904), who was one of the first to dabble in botany, ceramics, metalwork, interior and furniture, introduced the practicalities of design to the Victorian masses, thereby ensuring a future of happy-looking-British homes.
The exhibition revolves around Britain's burgeoning middle-class consumer culture, which erupted after the industrial revolution.
Dresser's earlier work delves deeply into intricate Victorian wallpapering and fabric design, and Dresser was thoroughly dedicated to the subject. In 1870-1873, he produced long-winded articles in the Technical Educator entitled 'Principles of Design,' which furthered his purpose to make everyone's home design-savvy.
A mid-life visit to Japan brought Dresser back with bags of inspiration, and a yet unseen minimalist approach to his interior work, best illustrated in an expansive collection of teapots he designed for Dixon & Sons. Instead of hedging around slight nuances in different cultural design, it seems Dresser has clipped and taken them, passing them by with a proclivity for an art-deco style far ahead of his time.
Most interesting in this exhibition are a number of metal toast racks, designed around 1877, which range from calm to erratic, but are all cleverly shaped and placed perfectly for their use. If you're not one for admiring toast racks and teapots, this might not be your best spent UKP3-6. Otherwise, daytime-home-improvement-television-addicts, unite.
- Megan Retka
