Cathy's Art Diary

Luxurious exhibition at Bonhams to mark the auction of the contents of Kerfield House. The pieces were shown in room settings against hand painted wallpaper by Gournay and some pieces were used in the Downton Abbey exhibition downstairs. There was a strange mix of ornate French 19th century pieces and modern Italian furniture, but it worked well together. I loved this lacquer cabinet by Piero Fornasetti.   Closed 10 September 2025

Wonderful exhibition at the Design Museum on the life and work of 20th century designer Charlotte Perriand. Perriand began by working for Le Corbusier but the work she did for him went uncredited. For him she developed the classic steel framed chairs and in one section of the show there were modern reproductions you could sit in. They were so comfortable. I loved the room recreations including her 1927 flat which included an extendable table with a rubber top which rolled out of the wall. I just loved her economy of space. Later on their were modular book cases which you can still see in shops today. In the 1930s she moved into more organic forms and I fell in love with her Boomerang desk. It looked so ergonomic and practical. She spent time in Japan in the Second World War and designed the carpet shown here based on sailors graffiti on the ship she travelled over on. She went on to design travel agencies for Air France and a fabulous ski resort Les Arc which houses 30,000...

Nice small exhibition at the Wallace Collection looking at the different stages in the production of a piece of gilded furniture. All the pieces came from the workshop of Francois Linke, one of the most important Parisian cabinet-makers of the late 18th/early 19th century, a time when the influence of French fashion was at its height. It looked at a particular consul table and showed drawings, a scale model, a wooden full sized model and plaster and gilts mounts. It talked about how the decoration was moulded in terracotta so they could be fitted to the full scale model before being cast. The example used was a bureau made for the 1900 exhibition copied from the museum’s own collection. Closes on 24 September 2017

Interesting exhibition at Tate Modern giving an overview the work of the designer Jasper Morrison who has designed the new furniture and fittings for the Tate Modern Extension. It was an interesting idea to spotlight the interior design of the space as well as the architecture. This was a nicely laid out gallery with a mixture of his work in a line combining furniture, lighting and objects. I loved the fact it even included door handles! I picked up the interesting leaflet which accompanied it which outlined the inspiration behind the designs and good sketches of the main shapes in chronological order.

Fascinating exhibition at the Fine Art Society of items from the collection of John Scott who specialised in objects from 1830-1930 a period which saw the rise of the professional designer. In all there will be seven exhibitions and this show comprised three of them modern English design from the 1860s and 1870s, Powell & Sons Whitefriars glass and British art pottery. The modern English design section was a wonderful mix of furniture, pictures, ceramics and metal work. I had not come across the metalworker Thomas Jeckyll before and loved his work. The Glass section was beautiful but there was almost too much of it to look at! A lot of the wine glasses had quite a modern feel to them and I would buy them now. I think my favourite section was the art pottery. There were designers I knew already such as De Morgan and the Martin Brothers but also one’s I had not come across like a wall of Majolica dished by Della Robbia Pottery.    

Interesting display at the Wallace Collection looking at the 19th century fashion for reproducing French 18th century furniture. To do this it took a piece from its own collection made in 1776 and compared it to a reproduction of the piece made in about 1880. Oddly the earlier piece has the cruder construction because less attention was paid to what couldn’t be seen. However it’s decorative marquetry was much finer with some of the pieces engraved to enhance the detail. This furniture was not necessarily made to deceive but more likely because there was a fashion for the style creating a demand which couldn’t be met from originals.   I liked the way some of the detail such as cupboard doors were shown directly side by side and it was quite fun to try to guess which was which.