Saturday 15 May 2021

The Gallery at The Guild



The Gallery at The Guild, in Chipping Campden.


Chipping Campden became known as the centre for the Cotswold Arts and Crafts Movement, following the move of Charles Robert Ashbee and the members of his Guild and School of Handicraft from the East End of London in 1902. According to the local historical society, the movement 'focused on handmade objects, reacting against the rapidly growing dominance of machinery which resulted in the loss of craft skills'. The Guild of Handicraft specialised in metalworking, producing jewellery and enamels, as well as hand-wrought copper and wrought irnwork, and furniture making. The Guild of Handicraft in Chipping Campden,  founded by Asbee in 1888, became one of the foremost Arts and Crafts workshops of its period and formed the focus of the communal life which, as a pioneering social experiment, formed the most bold and important expression of Arts and Crafts principles. 




A number of artists and writters settled in the area, including F. L. Griggs, the etcher, who built Dover's Court, one of the last significant Arts and Crafts houses. He set up the Campden Trust in 1929 with Norman Jewson and others, initially to protect Dover's Hill from development. According to a 2018 report, Griggs 'systematically restored houses on the High Street, battled against a tide of ugliness that engulfed other town and villages and used money he could ill afford to safeguard its surroundings'. Many of Grigg's etchings are preserved at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.



The Guild ceased operation in 1907. In 2005, a group of traditional craftspeople moved into the Old Silk Mill and turned it into an art gallery








Caroline Barnett, Pausing for Reflection, (smoke fired)





Robin Wade, Large Heathland Vase (porcelain)









Hilary LaForce, Bowl, (porcelain, crystalline glaze, volcanic glaze)




looking in




Hilary LaForce, Bowl, (porcelain, crystalline glaze, volcanic glaze)




Hilary LaForce, Tea Bowl, (porcelain, crystalline glaze, volcanic glaze)




Hilary LaForce, 2 Tea Bowls, (porcelain, crystalline glaze, volcanic glaze)




Hilary La Force, Shell Form I, (porcelain, crystalline glaze, volcanic glaze)





Don Mason, Newgale, Pembrokeshire, (acrylic)





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