The World of Interiors

56

books

All titles (but one) can be ordered for the prices indicated (plus £5.50 UK p&p) from the World of Interiors Bookshop on 0871 911 1747

1

3 4

5

2

I’d love to see an Ealing comedy based on BAWDEN RAVILIOUS AND THE

ARTISTS OF GREAT BARDFIELD [ 1 ] (eds Gill Saunders and Malcolm Yorke;

V&A rrp £25 Wo I price £22.50). It’s got it all: a middle-class hanker-

ing after rural authenticity; jealousy and bed-hopping; the Daily Mail

snooping for spice on open days; and bemused Essex villagers (‘Lot

o’ peculiar folk knocking about’). Though good the essays on in-

dividuals – from painter John Aldridge to textile designer Marianne

Straub – have an atomising effect in a book about a community but the

diverse images make for a warm if escapist Neo-Romantic vision.

Prompted by a Hindu harvest festival in Tamil Nadu photo-

grapher Toni Meneguzzo travelled across eight Indian states and

learned the language of 12-tone signals to communicate with the

dolled-up quadrupeds of DIVINE BOVINE [ 2 ] (Silvana Editoriale rrp

£21.95 approx); it seems they don’t speak Italian.

Shot against a milky-white backcloth these idol-

ised mobile altars or herbivorous canvases de-

pending on your belief system come draped in

bananas and balloons blue-horned and berib-

boned swathed in silks and (ancient) swastikas.

But they’re holy cows and never look fazed.

ROBERT WELCH [ 3 ] (by Charlotte and Peter Fiell;

Laurence King rrp £30 Wo I price £28.50) was a

mid-century titan whose long career spanned craft

silversmith and industrial designer. Graduating

from the RCA just after the Fest ival of Britain his

early designs soon became cult objects such as

‘Alveston’ cutlery and the Westclox alarm clock.

Influenced by the clean lines and functional pre-

cision of Scandinavian design his output encom-

passed everything from plastic-handled scissors

to a magnificent gilt-parcel candelabra for the Worshipful Company

of Goldsmiths. Sleek and authoritative the book is a fitting monu-

ment to the empire Welch built from an old silk mill in the Cotswolds

• one now run by his children.
  Gilded Age robber barons once vacationed at Newport Rhode
  Island in vast asymmetrical ‘cottages’; now one firm is reviving
  the short-lived faintly colonial style for today’s plutocrats. In THE
  NEW SHINGLED HOUSE: IKE KLIGERMAN BARKLEY [ 4 ] (by John Ike et al;
  Monacelli rrp £50 Wo I price £40) places have names like Watch Hill
  Aerie and Blue Ridge Lodge. With their copper fire hoods and mas-
  sive bluestone piers these relaxed piles are packed to the gunwales
  with Arts and Crafts-y joinery – indeed the more Lutyens-inspired
  places (check out those rectangular oak balusters!) have been dub-
  b ed ‘Shinglish’. But where are the inhabitants?
  Trades have always flourished in the East End
  be it the Jewish ‘rag’ merchants of Spitalfields or
  the sweatshops of Bethnal Green where the des-
  perate churned out clothes-pegs matchboxes and
  shoes. In the finely crafted atmospheric MAKERS OF
  EAST LONDON [ 5 ] (by Katie Treggiden; Hoxton Mini
  rrp £30 Wo I price £27) several of the 21 artisans –
  from the umbrella maker James Ince & Son (1805)
  to the Whitechapel Bell Foundry (1509!) – have
  deep roots here. But whether it’s chairs or chop-
  ping boards crocheted lamps or custom bikes
  many talented newcomers seduced by the buzz of
  regeneration feel they have fallen into a honey trap.
  Spiralling rents and warehouses morphing into
  luxury flats mean that some of these artisans may
  soon have to set up shop elsewhere. r