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.

The Habitat Catalogue II: 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

The Habitat Catalogue I: 1977

     I've always had a soft spot for Habitat, though from 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.

St Michael, Edenham I

     In Holy Week I visited St Michael, Edenham, the dynastic church of the Dukes, then Earls, of Ancaster - hence the rather grand Victorian tombs in the churchyard.       The church stands on a large, square mound in the middle of the valley of the Eden; internal evidence shows there was originally a substantial Anglo-Saxon church here.  The tower is good Perpendicular.  The belfry windows are in the local style, with a central mullion rising right into the apex of the arch, and blank spandrels on either side.  The north aisle is Decorated Gothic, the porch and the south aisle, like the tower, Perp.  There are also some good Baroque, and later Gothic, tombs in the churchyard.

'The Broken Road', Patrick Leigh Fermor

     Last week I finished reading 'The Broken Road - from the Iron Gates to Mount Athos' by Patrick Leigh Fermor, or rather to be accurate, written by Patrick Leigh Fermor and assembled and edited by Artemis Cooper and Colin Thubron.  It is the third and final book describing the journey the eighteen year old Leigh Fermor made on foot in the year 1933 from London to Constantinople - one imperial capital to another.  The first two books - 'A Time for gifts' and 'Between the Woods and the Water' were published in 1977 and 1986 respectively.  

     This third instalment never appeared in Leigh Fermor's life time, finding it difficult and then - as age over took him - impossible to complete.  I have to confess I read this sort of trilogy in a funny order starting with the second book (bought at the superb 'Byzantium' exhibition at the R.A.) before reading the first book - alas I have yet finish, losing him somewhere in Austria.  Another reason for this post is to show you some work by John Craxton - the book covers for those first two books.  I presume the two men must have known each other living in Greece, certainly they shared a love for the place.

   The cover for 'The Broken Road' has been designed by Ed Kluz, who just so happens to be one of my favourite contemporary artists.  The publishers, Murray, couldn't have chosen better.

   The three books are a outstanding literary achievement, evoking a world that has almost vanished, a world destroyed by totalitarianism, war and Modernity.  A sense of loss, a poignancy, unsurprisingly, pervades the books, and I detect the influence of Chateaubriand's 'Memoires d'outre-tombe'.  That remarkable journey also marks a change in Leigh Fermor's life, from a directionless teenager, expelled from several schools, to living a life that we mere mortals can only dream of; an interesting War, and then a life living on the Greek isles writing travel books.
   'The Broken Road' starts with Leigh Fermor crossing the Danube into Bulgaria and follows him as he explores the landscapes - he has a keen eye for the natural world - and culture. All three books, it has to be said, are full of the most fascinating details. He travels south into the valley of the Maritza before heading north back over the Danube to Bucharest - the cosmopolitan life there is much to his liking, so much so he would return there later to live for four years with Princess Balasha Cantacuzino, a member of an ancient Byzantine noble family who had one member ascend the Imperial throne.

   However back to the narrative: with the onset of Autumn Leigh Fermor resumes his journey returning to Bulgaria and the Black Sea Coast. He visits Mesembria, and is nearly drown on his journey south from there. The continuous narrative finishes abruptly at Burgas.
   As he travelled Leigh Fermor kept a notebook/diary and the editors have used that to complete the journey to the Imperial City.  However, as the they themselves readily admit, the notes Leigh Fermor took of his time in the city are scanty; there is no record, for instance of the impressions made on him by the architecture. The narrative does not however end there.  With a letter of admittance from the Ecumenical Patriarch Leigh Fermor travelled into northern Greece and the great monastic republic of Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain, one of the most important centres of Orthodox spirituality. I think it is telling that the most complete section of the diary covers the time he spent on the Holy Mountain.  It is tempting to see his journey as one of faith, a sort of pilgrimage, perhaps one not conventionally religious (I'm not sure whether Leigh Fermor converted to Orthodoxy, but I would like to think he did) but a search for the Pre-Modern