Mary Gilliatt: 'A House in the Country' II

   Here is part two of my selection of images from Mary Gilliat's 'A House in the Country' - a slightly different selection from the which my friend Ben Pentreath posted earlier this week.

   I love this photograph.

   I suspect that this cottage, in Suffolk, also belonged to Mary Gilliatt.  The furniture in the dining room including the dresser, and the items on that dresser, are identical to those in the image of her dining room and kitchen I posted at the end of last week.  I wonder what the explanation is?

   Seriously, what's not to like?

   The hall is stunning.

   The home of film director John Schlesinger and his partner Geoffrey Sharpe.  The work of David Hicks.  The outside, a former oasthouse in the Weald is suffering from a thorough going over in Suburban style.  The inside however is more more interesting.  The best room is the dining room.  Stairs in the style of Eliel Saarinen, derived in turn from Voysey.

   A wonderful evocative image, those stairs.

   With the possible exception of the lighting there's nothing I would change.  I even like the Casa Pupo rug.

Mary Gilliatt: 'A House in the Country' I

    Regular readers of this blog will have noticed the sudden spate of posts about interior design.  It is certainly the thing that's inspiring me most at present.  It all started as a teenager and has been a recurring interest since.  I have never practiced as an interior designer although it was an early ambition.  I got seduced by architecture and went into that without the sort of success I would have wanted and so I became a carer.  I simply don't have the temperament to be a designer.  Sometimes this is a cause for regret, but then I remember the amount of stress I used to get, the deep unhappiness that was my passage through the education system and I'm pleased I didn't take things further.  And now, after the caring has (not quite) finished, and only two years off fifty I think it's too late to pick things up again - and in any case I don't have enough confidence.  That I do regret.
Anyway.....Mary Gilliatt.

    Mary Gilliatt is a writer on interior design.  In the 1960s she wrote for 'House and Garden' under the editorship of Robert Harling.  In 1968 she wrote her first book 'English Style', and it was Ben Pentreath's post on that book that sparked my interest. (What would we do without Mr Pentreath?)  'A House in the Country' followed three books later in 1973. The photographer was Brian Morris.  Although not so lavishly produced as 'English Style' - not so much colour photography or 'empty page' - it does acquit itself well.  The photography is good, sometimes quite evocative.  The layout too; the title pages are very good.

   Mary Gilliatt's own house in the country in west Suffolk - a bold, eclectic mix of tradition, Victoriana and Italian Modernism.  Note the same fabric recurring as table cloth, napkin and scatter cushion. An early design from the Designers Guild.

   The home of artist William Scott.

   This, I think, is the country home of Richard Guyatt, the designer (the text only refers to Prof Guyatt).  'Casa Pupo' rug in the entrance hall.  Not sure about that fitted carpet!  The dining room is really attractive - seagrass matting, brick floors.

   The weekend cottage of Terence and Caroline Conran.

   The country home of a retired general and is artist wife.  I find the austerity of both the dining room and sitting room very satisfying.  Shame that these are only black and white images though. (07.07.2020 There is a tiny colour picture of the kitchen in Terance Conran's 'The House Book')

A House in the Country

      The Second Home from Cottages to Castles

Text:  Mary Gilliatt

Photography: Bryan Morris

Hutchinson & Co Ltd

London

1973

ISBN 0 09 111610 4

Work in progress....a foliate head III

      Today's work.....

Work in progress....a foliate head II

   A brief progress report....

Work in progress....a foliate head

   Thought you might want to see something I started working on yesterday in a sudden fit of inspiration.  I hope you like it....

House and Garden 1968 I The Conrans at home

Sheer coincidence.  After a couple of posts on Habitat catalogues from the mid-to-late seventies there arrived in yesterday's post the March 1968 edition of 'House and Gardens' (edited by the multi-talented Robert Harling).  Unbeknownst to me when I bought it on ebay - from a lovely seller, who very kindly sent a short, hand-written letter with the magazine: turns out they were a bit of a Conran fan too - the March edition contains a smallish feature on the London town house of the Conrans - Caroline and Terence.  (It had to be an NW postcode didn't it?)  I simply bought the magazine because it (also) features the home of Osbert Lancaster, a bit of a hero of mine.  A real bonus then.  I hope to post some more pictures in the coming weeks - the magazine is such a delight.

No hint of the Conrans on the cover - it shows the Cotswold cottage of Hugh Francis.  No idea of who he is but he does have a lot of taste.

Habitat 1978

    Not much, to add to Tuesday's comments.....much of what I said about the 1977 catalogue still applies

Best image in the catalogue

I could live with that bathroom

Habitat 1977

     I've always had a soft spot for Habitat, though through my own experience I really I couldn't recommend working there.  Neither it nor I were up to scratch.  Regardless of that, a recent post by Ben Pentreath kind of re-ignited that love and I went and bought an early-ish catalogue on ebay - 1977 - and then another - 1978 - a week later.  Of the two 1978 is much more easy to photograph, the images (I don't mean the designs) just being that bit more interesting.
     So what struck me?  Well firstly there is a sort of cheapness to some of the designs that disappoints, there is also the general sense of brown everywhere - all that hessian and cork tile, which doesn't help.  It is also far more mainstream than I imagined.  And there was a comprehensiveness, not wholly Modernist, perhaps Post-Modernist would be a better description.  Looking at images of Terence Conran's holiday cottage illustrated in two books by Mary Gilliat, 'English Style' 1968?, and 'A House in the Country' 1973 we see the clever juxtaposition of eclectic objects - a rejection of hard doctrinaire Modernism.  It would be just - just! - about possible to furnish a traditional looking home from the contents of the catalogue.  Far easier still to decorate a home and make it Art Deco.  In fact some it was more than decidedly traditional, and I'm thinking mainly of the pottery.  The fabrics (including 'Egyptian Birds' by Collier Campbell) and wall-coverings too are on the 'conservative' end of the spectrum.  There is still lingering the atmosphere of the late Sixties when taste moved away from Modernism; more than a hint of Victoriana and the ethnic (lovely dhurries and Batik), Art Deco Revival (viz Biba), Celia Birtwell, and Laura Ashley.  Odd the last one but the influence is there.  So perhaps less 'cutting edge', though newer trends are picked up: a hint of 'High Tech' and also, what Peter York dubbed, 'Chic Graphique'.  (Funny that whole shift in popular culture in the Mid-Sixties from the images of Modernity to something softer, romantic, nostalgic.  Funny because in certain artistic circles it had been bubbling away for years - think of the work of Bawden and Barbara Jones and also the photographers Cecil Beaton and Angus McBean, whose work was influenced both by Surrealism and Victoriana and whose houses were crammed full of old things and wit.  That influence flowed into Pop-Art, a British invention, and suddenly erupting in, among other things the Peacock Revolution of 1966 which was, let's not forget, an upper class phenomena mediated through Pop culture.  That's also why it's lazy to talk about the 'Sixties', or the 'Seventies' etc.  It's more complicated and nuanced. But I digress!)

     As with all the catalogues produced by Habitat in the 1970s, the Art Director was the Australian born Stafford Cliff.

Front and back covers, the former almost looks back, the latter forward.

Love those rocking chairs.

The pornography of abundance

Love the Magistretti chairs and the dresser

Not much Modernism here

'In the Family'

The names were familiar, where had I heard them before?  And then it came to me - standing there in the 'The Rampant Lions Press' exhibition - 'The World of Interiors'.  November, 1982.  'In the Family'.  Text: Priscilla Boniface, photography: Michael Boys.  An article I have continued to return to over the years, and it still delights me now.   The house in question, owned by The National Trust, was lived in by the Sutcliffes, John and Gabrielle.  He worked for the Trust - and an expert of historical decorative schemes - and Gabrielle a classical musician.  John was the son of the artist Holman Sutcliffe and she the daughter of Will Carter.  In fact the article was published at the time of the original 1982 Rampant Lions Press exhibition at the Fitzwilliam.  I'm not sure what else I can say.  Enjoy.