0:00:26 > 0:00:30It's sleek, geometrical.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33A vision of aluminium and glass.
0:00:33 > 0:00:37It's the last place you'd go looking for Art Nouveau, isn't it?
0:00:37 > 0:00:38Isn't it?
0:00:43 > 0:00:46This is the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
0:00:46 > 0:00:48on the outskirts of Norwich.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51Home to the art collection of the British retail dynasty,
0:00:51 > 0:00:52the Sainsbury family.
0:00:55 > 0:00:59It's also home to the Anderson Collection of Art Nouveau,
0:00:59 > 0:01:03one of the largest and finest private collections in Europe.
0:01:03 > 0:01:07Art Nouveau emerged at the turn of the 19th century
0:01:07 > 0:01:10from the restless energies of the industrial city.
0:01:11 > 0:01:13In the age of Darwin and Freud,
0:01:13 > 0:01:17it was fixated on nature, sex,
0:01:17 > 0:01:19and the newly-liberated woman.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25In less than a decade it went from nowhere to everywhere.
0:01:27 > 0:01:30And then disappeared completely.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35This week I'm in Britain where the decadence of Oscar Wilde
0:01:35 > 0:01:39and Aubrey Beardsley scandalised the nation.
0:01:40 > 0:01:45Where the sensuality of exotic foreign influences met the genius
0:01:45 > 0:01:51of British craftsmanship to create a wholly unique moment in design.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54And as brand names such as Liberty's went global,
0:01:54 > 0:01:59an extraordinary hidden gem took shape in the crook of a Surrey hill.
0:02:20 > 0:02:23Imagine this, the Thames, in the 19th century.
0:02:23 > 0:02:28Steam ships take our products all over the world and return
0:02:28 > 0:02:33with treasure troves of art and design from the Empire and beyond.
0:02:33 > 0:02:36It was a dazzling time, full of progress and change,
0:02:36 > 0:02:39but there were also more ominous undercurrents.
0:02:39 > 0:02:45Not for nothing is Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness, published 1899,
0:02:45 > 0:02:50opening on the waters of this river, foul and pestilential.
0:02:50 > 0:02:53These days, the river banks are the preserve of hedge fund managers
0:02:53 > 0:02:57but back then only artists could be persuaded
0:02:57 > 0:03:00to find their accommodation along its shores.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06They believed that our burgeoning industrial cities could be reformed
0:03:06 > 0:03:08by a beauty revolution.
0:03:08 > 0:03:11For Art Nouveau designers, that began with an event
0:03:11 > 0:03:15that changed the story of 19th century British design.
0:03:18 > 0:03:23In 1854, an American fleet of seven ships and 2,000 men
0:03:23 > 0:03:25sailed into the harbour of Nagasaki.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30After centuries of isolation,
0:03:30 > 0:03:33Japan was forced to open her borders to trade
0:03:33 > 0:03:36and Japanese goods started flooding into Britain.
0:03:45 > 0:03:47Collected avidly by artists,
0:03:47 > 0:03:50these goods inspired a new approach to British design.
0:03:52 > 0:03:58New patterns, flowers, plants, birds adorned their work.
0:04:00 > 0:04:04There was a new delicacy, a new sensuality.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13Japan was seen as everything that the West was not.
0:04:13 > 0:04:16Exotic, sensual, uninhibited.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22In London, James Abbott McNeil Whistler painted women in kimonos
0:04:22 > 0:04:26hinting at the sensuality beneath the silk.
0:04:29 > 0:04:32An American who had lived in France and Russia,
0:04:32 > 0:04:36Whistler was a troublemaker with a modern international agenda.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41He harnessed Japanese style to a movement that insisted that
0:04:41 > 0:04:44art had no social or moral agenda.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47Art was for art's sake.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49A new cult of beauty was born.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52There was a whole new style of sensuousness
0:04:52 > 0:04:54amongst the Avant Garde.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56It was called the Aesthetic Movement
0:04:56 > 0:05:00and I've come to find out about it, where else,
0:05:00 > 0:05:04but on the sun-kissed boulevards of Shepherds Bush, West London.
0:05:05 > 0:05:07Mmm, they're nice!
0:05:11 > 0:05:15- Hello, Peter.- Wow.- Do you like my flowers?- Lovely.- I'm Stephen.
0:05:15 > 0:05:16- Hi, how do you do? - These are for you.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19Thank you very much. They're beautiful.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22'Design historian Peter Fiell has spent years
0:05:22 > 0:05:25'lovingly reconstructing a room in the Aesthetic style.'
0:05:28 > 0:05:33Oh, this is fun, isn't it? This is great, Peter.
0:05:33 > 0:05:35I feel we should both slip into some kimonos.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38Don't know how you feel about that. I only just met you.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41- We've got sunflowers. - I suppose we have. Fantastic place.
0:05:41 > 0:05:45I notice there are some sunflowers here, like the ones I brought you.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48Yes, well, as you probably gathered,
0:05:48 > 0:05:50having gifted me those beautiful sunflowers,
0:05:50 > 0:05:55one of major motifs, you know, of the Aesthetic Movement is the sunflower
0:05:55 > 0:06:00and it literally represents the sun and warmth and...
0:06:00 > 0:06:02- Beauty?- Beauty.
0:06:02 > 0:06:07And you see these motifs recurring time and time again.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12'With their exotic sunflowers and irises,
0:06:12 > 0:06:14'peacocks and cranes,
0:06:14 > 0:06:18'ebonised furniture and willow patterns, the Aesthetes made a break
0:06:18 > 0:06:23'with the dense briars and brambles of traditional British design.'
0:06:30 > 0:06:31This is what Oscar Wilde meant
0:06:31 > 0:06:35when he talked about the house beautiful, wasn't it?
0:06:35 > 0:06:38It was critical to be seen as a connoisseur of beauty
0:06:38 > 0:06:44and, ultimately, as someone who had refined good taste.
0:06:46 > 0:06:50'Whistler and his friend, the poet and playwright Oscar Wilde,
0:06:50 > 0:06:54'held court in Japanese-inspired rooms like this one,
0:06:54 > 0:06:56'also sharing other foreign ideas
0:06:56 > 0:07:01'that they brought back from their frequent trips to bohemian Paris.
0:07:01 > 0:07:06'Their scandalous ideas about sex, death and art were beyond the pale
0:07:06 > 0:07:09'of God-fearing Victorian society.'
0:07:10 > 0:07:14- Thank you for these flowers again. - It's my pleasure. They look nice.
0:07:14 > 0:07:17- Tell you what, it needed something in here, didn't it?- Yes!
0:07:17 > 0:07:20I'll put them right behind you here. That's the perfect spot.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24'In 1894, a new disciple joined the ranks of these Aesthetes.'
0:07:26 > 0:07:30An iconoclast, brandishing a bold new art,
0:07:30 > 0:07:33he captured the avant garde spirit of Paris
0:07:33 > 0:07:36and the sensuality of Japanese design.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42The illustrator Aubrey Beardsley
0:07:42 > 0:07:45was the first exponent of Art Nouveau in Britain.
0:07:45 > 0:07:47He was one of the first anywhere.
0:07:47 > 0:07:52He burst on to the London scene at the tender age of 19.
0:07:52 > 0:07:58His career would be meteoric, dazzling, uncontrollable,
0:07:58 > 0:07:59and over far too soon.
0:08:04 > 0:08:07The teenage Beardsley heard that Wilde was writing a play
0:08:07 > 0:08:10about the biblical temptress Salome.
0:08:11 > 0:08:14He produced an illustration on spec
0:08:14 > 0:08:17in the hope that he might impress Oscar and his publisher.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23In it, Beardsley transforms the sinful Salome
0:08:23 > 0:08:27with whiplash curves into a femme fatale.
0:08:27 > 0:08:32Here she is clasping the severed head of saintly John the Baptist.
0:08:32 > 0:08:36The blatant sensuality and amorality of this image
0:08:36 > 0:08:38rivalled anything from bohemian Paris.
0:08:42 > 0:08:46Wilde was duly impressed and Beardsley was commissioned
0:08:46 > 0:08:51to illustrate the first English edition of Salome in 1894.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54His drawings were startlingly new.
0:08:54 > 0:08:57They were sensuous. They were international.
0:08:57 > 0:08:59They were Art Nouveau.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06Beardsley is, I suppose, the most distinctive,
0:09:06 > 0:09:10most extraordinary young illustrator that we've ever had in England.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13This is called the Peacock Skirt
0:09:13 > 0:09:19and it's probably the most celebrated from Beardsley's set of designs.
0:09:19 > 0:09:22People would have thought this was very shocking at the time.
0:09:22 > 0:09:27It absolutely exemplifies the way in which he'd found
0:09:27 > 0:09:30a new way of representing a literary subject.
0:09:30 > 0:09:32There's no suggestion of the background.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35He cuts to the chase, as it were. It's just about the figures.
0:09:35 > 0:09:38That's the sort of thing he learnt from looking at Japanese prints.
0:09:38 > 0:09:44It's also, in a way, stylistically what we now call Art Nouveau,
0:09:44 > 0:09:51except that Beardsley was not trying to do exactly the same sort of thing.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54He knew what was going on on the continent but he was, actually,
0:09:54 > 0:09:57to a great degree, ploughing his own furrow here in England.
0:09:59 > 0:10:02'Beardsley's whiplash curves came to define his unique
0:10:02 > 0:10:05'Japanesque version of Art Nouveau.'
0:10:07 > 0:10:12And this famous whiplash line here, apart from anything else,
0:10:12 > 0:10:15that's extraordinarily difficult to do, isn't it, I would imagine?
0:10:15 > 0:10:19Just to have the elan and the confidence just to dash that off.
0:10:19 > 0:10:21This is something he excels at,
0:10:21 > 0:10:24which is this kind of extraordinary calligraphic energy.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28He is the great master of drawing with a pen.
0:10:28 > 0:10:30And for people who haven't done that themselves,
0:10:30 > 0:10:32that's no mean feat, is it?
0:10:32 > 0:10:34You don't just produce one of these swirls.
0:10:34 > 0:10:38It is actually very difficult to create a drawing
0:10:38 > 0:10:41of this kind of faultless technique.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44Beardsley's penmanship, if you like, the actual craftsmanship
0:10:44 > 0:10:49of working with, remember, a spluttering pen dipped in ink...
0:10:51 > 0:10:55'In the finely-drawn decorative details of his work,
0:10:55 > 0:10:59'Beardsley's mischief and subversion plays out.
0:10:59 > 0:11:02'The devil is certainly in his details.'
0:11:05 > 0:11:07Look closely at those candlesticks.
0:11:07 > 0:11:10Yes, they are what you think they are.
0:11:13 > 0:11:15The publishers actually jokingly said
0:11:15 > 0:11:18you had to look at everything through a microscope and upside down
0:11:18 > 0:11:23in order to make sure he hadn't smuggled in some kind of indecencies.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27Is it the art of a young man? As you get older, do you get more cautious?
0:11:27 > 0:11:33I think he moved in a circle of youngish, quite revolutionary
0:11:33 > 0:11:37artists and writers who enjoyed teasing the public.
0:11:37 > 0:11:39Cocking a snook, if that's the phrase I'm looking for.
0:11:39 > 0:11:41Absolutely. It is exactly the word.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45'To the London arts establishment
0:11:45 > 0:11:49'he was the amoral, alien enfant terrible of his day.'
0:11:52 > 0:11:54The Studio Magazine,
0:11:54 > 0:12:00the international bible for avant garde design founded in 1893,
0:12:00 > 0:12:04featured Beardsley's work and reproduced his Salome illustrations.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07His Japanesque figures and decorative curves,
0:12:07 > 0:12:10distributed all over the world in the magazine,
0:12:10 > 0:12:15were absorbed into Art Nouveau as it emerged on the continent.
0:12:15 > 0:12:17Beardsley had arrived.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21This was the age of the dandy.
0:12:21 > 0:12:25It was the time when what you said, the cut of your jib,
0:12:25 > 0:12:30the colour of your button hole, the name of your tailor,
0:12:30 > 0:12:33all these things counted for at least as much
0:12:33 > 0:12:35as what you actually DID in life.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41'Matthew Sturgiss is Beardsley's biographer.'
0:12:41 > 0:12:44Hello, you must be Matthew. I'm Stephen. How are you?
0:12:44 > 0:12:47- Very well, thanks.- Fancy a haircut? - Well, why not?
0:12:50 > 0:12:54Matthew, how important was image to Aubrey?
0:12:54 > 0:12:57Was image crucial to him?
0:12:57 > 0:12:59Hugely important.
0:12:59 > 0:13:05Really both as a reflection and a projection of his art.
0:13:05 > 0:13:09He delighted in witty bon mots.
0:13:09 > 0:13:11He dressed beautifully.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14He was conscious too, of his extraordinary physique
0:13:14 > 0:13:18and that became part of his public persona.
0:13:18 > 0:13:22'Beardsley's strange haircut and dandified garb
0:13:22 > 0:13:26'were cultivated for effect but it wasn't all artifice.
0:13:26 > 0:13:30'His gauntness was the result of incurable tuberculosis,
0:13:30 > 0:13:33'though not even the gravity of that condition
0:13:33 > 0:13:36'stopped his searing humour.'
0:13:36 > 0:13:39He once said that, you know, I'm so affected,
0:13:39 > 0:13:41even my lungs are affected.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45But he knew he didn't have long, so he had to make an impact?
0:13:45 > 0:13:49Yes, I mean, from childhood
0:13:49 > 0:13:52he'd suffered with tuberculosis
0:13:52 > 0:13:56and he realised that time was likely to be short.
0:13:56 > 0:14:00I think that did lend an intensity to his work
0:14:00 > 0:14:02and the way he worked.
0:14:04 > 0:14:09'Beardsley's intense ambition, mischief and hunger for attention
0:14:09 > 0:14:11'were a lethal combination.'
0:14:16 > 0:14:19Matthew and I have come to the Cadogan in West London,
0:14:19 > 0:14:23a hotel that would play a crucial part in the unravelling
0:14:23 > 0:14:26of Beardsley's brilliant career.
0:14:30 > 0:14:33Would Wilde and Beardsley have taken tea together?
0:14:33 > 0:14:35Were they friendly?
0:14:35 > 0:14:38What was the nature of their relationship, would you say?
0:14:38 > 0:14:41Wilde was the older figure.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44He was some 20 years Beardsley's senior.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47He was the great artistic personality of the age,
0:14:47 > 0:14:51and Beardsley was ever an iconoclast
0:14:51 > 0:14:53and although he admired Wilde enormously,
0:14:53 > 0:14:55he also enjoyed poking fun at him,
0:14:55 > 0:14:59undermining him, pricking his pretensions.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02It's extraordinary. You know, at first sight what you have here
0:15:02 > 0:15:04is a fantastic draughtsmanship,
0:15:04 > 0:15:08and, at the same time, the sensibility of Viz magazine.
0:15:08 > 0:15:09Is that fair?
0:15:09 > 0:15:12There is certainly an element of that.
0:15:12 > 0:15:17I mean, Wilde complained that some of the details were like
0:15:17 > 0:15:20the naughty doodles that schoolboys introduced
0:15:20 > 0:15:22into the margins of their copybooks.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26Wilde had good cause to be suspicious.
0:15:26 > 0:15:27In his play, Salome,
0:15:27 > 0:15:32Wilde had compared the moon to a fat, pleasure-seeking old woman.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35But in one of Beardsley's illustrations,
0:15:35 > 0:15:38he gives the moon Wilde's features.
0:15:38 > 0:15:43Beardsley, as being someone in the inner cultural circle of the time,
0:15:43 > 0:15:48would have known rumours circulating about Wilde's double life,
0:15:48 > 0:15:51his attraction to the homosexual milieu,
0:15:51 > 0:15:56and so the notion of him being a bad drunken woman
0:15:56 > 0:15:58searching everywhere for lovers
0:15:58 > 0:16:00would have carried a certain sort of resonance.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04And in a way, that was dangerous information to be being leaked out.
0:16:06 > 0:16:11In 1894, Beardsley co-founded an arts journal called The Yellow Book
0:16:11 > 0:16:14to celebrate new writing and art.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20As art editor, he had the freedom to develop his unique style.
0:16:23 > 0:16:27Tragically, this startling talent was about to be eclipsed
0:16:27 > 0:16:32by a scandal that traumatised 19th-century Britain and Europe.
0:16:35 > 0:16:36For nearly four years,
0:16:36 > 0:16:40Wilde had been having an affair with Lord Alfred Douglas
0:16:40 > 0:16:42who was 16 years his junior.
0:16:42 > 0:16:47In 1895, Douglas' father, the Marquess of Queensbury,
0:16:47 > 0:16:51left a card at Wilde's club calling him a sodomite.
0:16:52 > 0:16:56Wilde sued Queensbury for libel, but it backfired.
0:16:56 > 0:16:58Queensbury's allegation was upheld
0:16:58 > 0:17:01and Wilde was charged with gross indecency.
0:17:01 > 0:17:06Now, Oscar Wilde's room is down here, 118.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13This is where he had his exquisite collar felt
0:17:13 > 0:17:16the day the rozzers came to pick him up on charges of indecency.
0:17:16 > 0:17:20Beardsley's Yellow Book comes back into the story here,
0:17:20 > 0:17:23with tragic consequences.
0:17:26 > 0:17:29Everybody wanted to be in it and most of them were,
0:17:29 > 0:17:32with the notable exception of Oscar Wilde.
0:17:32 > 0:17:34The Yellow Book was consciously modelled
0:17:34 > 0:17:37on the most provocative French fiction of the day -
0:17:37 > 0:17:43cheeky novels coming in from the continent in yellow wrappers.
0:17:47 > 0:17:53On 5 April 1895, two arresting officers led Wilde out of the hotel.
0:17:53 > 0:17:56Under his arm was a yellow book.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00It was actually a copy of one of the aforesaid French novels
0:18:00 > 0:18:02but nobody noticed or cared.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05Journalists reported that Wilde had left the hotel
0:18:05 > 0:18:07with a copy of Beardsley's Yellow Book.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12The loathing for Wilde was so intense
0:18:12 > 0:18:14that a crowd took it upon themselves
0:18:14 > 0:18:18to go round to Beardsley's publishers and put the windows out.
0:18:18 > 0:18:21His boss, in a panic, fired him.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24Not one but two great careers and lives were blighted.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labour.
0:18:30 > 0:18:34The fallout from the scandal across Britain was devastating.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44And how important was the Wilde trial?
0:18:44 > 0:18:46We hear in the news that such-and-such a case
0:18:46 > 0:18:49is the trial of the year, the trial of the century,
0:18:49 > 0:18:53but that really was a huge case, wasn't it?
0:18:53 > 0:18:57I would say that it's probably not possible to exaggerate
0:18:57 > 0:19:00the importance of the Oscar Wilde trial in 1895.
0:19:00 > 0:19:05It traumatised British and specifically English culture,
0:19:05 > 0:19:10transformed the atmosphere in London and really did jump out at the time.
0:19:10 > 0:19:15It upset the entire nation. And I would say, in effect,
0:19:15 > 0:19:18made practicing as an advanced or an Avant Garde
0:19:18 > 0:19:21and Art Nouveau designer or artist
0:19:21 > 0:19:24extremely difficult in England after that time,
0:19:24 > 0:19:28because Wilde was loosely and broadly associated with that world.
0:19:28 > 0:19:31How influential was Beardsley?
0:19:31 > 0:19:34How deep did it go? How pervasive was it?
0:19:34 > 0:19:37Well, we would say that Beardsley was probably absolutely key
0:19:37 > 0:19:39for the style, paramount in fact.
0:19:39 > 0:19:41There are lots of English movements around
0:19:41 > 0:19:43in the last quarter of the 19th century
0:19:43 > 0:19:46and Beardsley pulls everything together to create
0:19:46 > 0:19:50what is going to become Art Nouveau. He is the first one to do that.
0:19:50 > 0:19:54And the key - the signature, I suppose - is the whiplash line.
0:19:54 > 0:19:56That strange tensile shape
0:19:56 > 0:19:59that everybody picks up on incredibly quickly
0:19:59 > 0:20:02and becomes the dominant image of the late 19th century
0:20:02 > 0:20:04in architecture and design.
0:20:04 > 0:20:08Despite his wit and bravura style,
0:20:08 > 0:20:12Beardsley had crossed a line that he couldn't come back from.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15After the Wilde scandal, he was vilified
0:20:15 > 0:20:17and his art forced under the counter.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20He worked for Leonard Smithers,
0:20:20 > 0:20:23an infamous publisher of literary erotica.
0:20:23 > 0:20:28Smithers commissioned Beardsley to illustrate Aristophanes' play,
0:20:28 > 0:20:30Lysistrata, about a community of women
0:20:30 > 0:20:34who deny their husbands their conjugal rights.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37Beardsley had nothing to lose.
0:20:37 > 0:20:41But then, just three years after the Wilde scandal,
0:20:41 > 0:20:44tuberculosis finally claimed him.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47Beardsley was just 25 years old.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53His shocking version of Art Nouveau had become
0:20:53 > 0:20:55the style that dare not speak its name.
0:20:55 > 0:20:59But that didn't mean it had gone altogether. On the contrary.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03The whiplash curve had got under the skin of British designers.
0:21:03 > 0:21:05So they took those curves...
0:21:05 > 0:21:07and then added something of their own.
0:21:07 > 0:21:12A spray of Celtic mist, just a hint of medieval mystery
0:21:12 > 0:21:16to create a version of Art Nouveau that was uniquely British.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29While Beardsley had looked to Japan and France for his ideas,
0:21:29 > 0:21:32this more polite version of Art Nouveau
0:21:32 > 0:21:35drew on British craft traditions
0:21:35 > 0:21:38and on the influence of one man in particular.
0:21:39 > 0:21:43William Morris - craftsman, poet, publisher, designer,
0:21:43 > 0:21:47socialist, all-round Victorian visionary.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51He was the driving force behind Arts and Crafts,
0:21:51 > 0:21:55one of the most influential movements in all European design.
0:21:55 > 0:21:57In his quest for beauty,
0:21:57 > 0:22:03Morris invoked the power of nature and our medieval past.
0:22:05 > 0:22:09Arts and Crafts may have been inspired by British history,
0:22:09 > 0:22:12but Morris was fighting for a brave new future,
0:22:12 > 0:22:16one in which beauty triumphed over industry.
0:22:18 > 0:22:22It's hard to believe now, but back in Morris's day,
0:22:22 > 0:22:26even here, in Hammersmith, the Thames was polluted and ugly.
0:22:26 > 0:22:30In fact, it's one of the things that Morris and his cohorts
0:22:30 > 0:22:33wanted to change, because their art, their design
0:22:33 > 0:22:36wasn't just about prettifying houses.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38It was also about revolution.
0:22:38 > 0:22:42It was changing the world one wallpaper at a time.
0:22:44 > 0:22:48In the 1890s, the middle-aged Morris
0:22:48 > 0:22:52used to take his daily constitutional here along the Thames
0:22:52 > 0:22:55to visit his close friend and fellow socialist,
0:22:55 > 0:22:57the publisher Emery Walker.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02- Hello, are you Helen?- I am, yes. - I'm Stephen, very nice to meet you.
0:23:02 > 0:23:04- Do come through. - Thank you, I'd love to.
0:23:04 > 0:23:08'Helen Elletson is the curator of Walker's house.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12'Full of Morris's designs, it's still a testament
0:23:12 > 0:23:15'to the Arts and Crafts vision.'
0:23:15 > 0:23:18- And this is just as it was, is it? - It is, yes, just as it was
0:23:18 > 0:23:20in the Walkers' day.
0:23:20 > 0:23:24There's a real sense of peace in here, isn't there?
0:23:29 > 0:23:30It's incredible.
0:23:32 > 0:23:36What's really striking as a visitor, and what I really like,
0:23:36 > 0:23:39is I expected a lot of it
0:23:39 > 0:23:44to be behind glass and velvet rope and "do not touch".
0:23:44 > 0:23:46It's not like that at all.
0:23:46 > 0:23:50It has more the feel of a private home, a time capsule, actually.
0:23:50 > 0:23:53It is a family home, it was lived in until 1999,
0:23:53 > 0:23:56unchanged since the Walker family lived here.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00They were great friends and William Morris in fact said his day
0:24:00 > 0:24:03wasn't complete without a sight of Emery Walker.
0:24:03 > 0:24:07- That's a lovely tribute from one man to another, isn't it?- Definitely.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10Yes, they used to meet each other regularly
0:24:10 > 0:24:14to talk about printing, their shared interest in politics,
0:24:14 > 0:24:16literature, so they were very close together.
0:24:16 > 0:24:21Morris's hand-printed designs, with their roses,
0:24:21 > 0:24:25briars and brambles, celebrate an historic England,
0:24:25 > 0:24:29a far cry from Beardsley's exotic whiplash curves.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33Morris was very much inspired by the English countryside.
0:24:33 > 0:24:35He wanted to go back to the way things were done properly,
0:24:35 > 0:24:38the traditional craft methods.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40Because, going back to his social beliefs,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42he really felt that if you had something beautiful
0:24:42 > 0:24:46in your home it would influence your quality of life.
0:24:46 > 0:24:49Was he a bit of a champagne socialist, as we might say today?
0:24:49 > 0:24:54Or maybe it's a mead socialist, harking back to medieval times?
0:24:54 > 0:24:57In the sense that, he was all about giving
0:24:57 > 0:25:00beautiful quality products to everybody,
0:25:00 > 0:25:04but in practise it was only the middle classes who could afford it?
0:25:04 > 0:25:05There is that contradiction with Morris
0:25:05 > 0:25:07and he had the best people working for him
0:25:07 > 0:25:10and the best materials that went into making the items.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14The only way of bringing down the price was to bring in
0:25:14 > 0:25:17some form of mass production and factories and machines,
0:25:17 > 0:25:19and that was what Morris was against.
0:25:19 > 0:25:21He disliked the Industrial Revolution
0:25:21 > 0:25:23and what it was doing to people's lives.
0:25:33 > 0:25:36Morris's vision was a potent force in British design
0:25:36 > 0:25:40at the turn of the century, especially in the south of England.
0:25:40 > 0:25:45When the work ethic and historicism of Arts and Crafts met
0:25:45 > 0:25:49the sensual curves of Art Nouveau, something magical happened.
0:25:52 > 0:25:57You won't find this extraordinary chapel in art history tomes,
0:25:57 > 0:26:00but it's a hidden gem created by Mary Watts,
0:26:00 > 0:26:04one of the unsung heroines of British Art Nouveau design.
0:26:07 > 0:26:09It's screened by these beech trees
0:26:09 > 0:26:12and tucked in the crook of a Surrey hill,
0:26:12 > 0:26:15but you can just hear the motorway, you'd never know it was here.
0:26:15 > 0:26:17It's like a Victorian mausoleum
0:26:17 > 0:26:21to the legendary, immemorial figures of Albion.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25You half-expect that bell to start tolling at any minute,
0:26:25 > 0:26:28and for these incredible, half-true figures
0:26:28 > 0:26:31to rise up and answer the call of their nation.
0:26:33 > 0:26:37You get a sense here in this churchyard of the sleep of England,
0:26:37 > 0:26:39the spirit of England.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47Mary designed this extraordinary chapel in 1895
0:26:47 > 0:26:50when she moved here from London with her husband,
0:26:50 > 0:26:54the celebrated Victorian painter George Frederick Watts,
0:26:54 > 0:26:56who was 32 years her senior.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00Mary had been his student.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03She idolised him, calling him "signor"
0:27:03 > 0:27:05as a mark of respect and deference.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08For the first years of their marriage
0:27:08 > 0:27:11she lived in his shadow in the society of London's great and good,
0:27:11 > 0:27:15but when the couple built a house just down the road from here
0:27:15 > 0:27:19in Compton, Surrey, she really came into her own.
0:27:23 > 0:27:29Look at this lovely sun-dappled, enchanted and enchanting frieze
0:27:29 > 0:27:31on the front of the chapel.
0:27:31 > 0:27:36Look at these very English-looking maidens got up as angels
0:27:36 > 0:27:40and it's a light slumber as they preside over classic
0:27:40 > 0:27:46Christian and British virtues of courage and patience.
0:27:46 > 0:27:48But everywhere the scene is enfolded
0:27:48 > 0:27:52by this riot of Art Nouveau motifs.
0:27:52 > 0:27:56They're enclosed in this thicket of curvy, sinuous lines.
0:27:56 > 0:27:59The peacock is displaying his feathers,
0:27:59 > 0:28:03a great chain mail behind him, and there are these knotted vines
0:28:03 > 0:28:07which veer off in all directions, their arrow-headed points.
0:28:13 > 0:28:15Mary was a member of something
0:28:15 > 0:28:18called the Home Arts and Industries Association
0:28:18 > 0:28:21that was founded on the Arts and Crafts principle
0:28:21 > 0:28:24that anybody could learn our ancient craft skills.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29She held Thursday evening terracotta classes
0:28:29 > 0:28:34for the local villagers to make the exterior decorations of the chapel,
0:28:34 > 0:28:37finally completing them in 1898.
0:28:41 > 0:28:44This is an early form of socialism, if you like, set in clay,
0:28:44 > 0:28:48because Mary Watts, although she was the guiding artistic brain
0:28:48 > 0:28:51behind this and did a lot of the work herself,
0:28:51 > 0:28:56was leading the common people, the everyday folk of Compton in Surrey,
0:28:56 > 0:28:59guiding their hands through the process.
0:28:59 > 0:29:02So what you see here is an Arts and Crafts sensibility
0:29:02 > 0:29:06but the languishing sensuality of Art Nouveau.
0:29:09 > 0:29:13And if you think the outside's impressive, prepare yourself...
0:29:30 > 0:29:34This is dumb-striking. It's not what I expected at all.
0:29:34 > 0:29:38It's a kind of fairy grotto or secret cave,
0:29:38 > 0:29:45as if some strange druid Celtic sect had been walled in here
0:29:45 > 0:29:48and these were their folk memories
0:29:48 > 0:29:50that they were implanting on the walls.
0:29:50 > 0:29:56At the same time it's like a crazy prog-rock version of heaven.
0:29:56 > 0:30:00If you had all the early Genesis LPs
0:30:00 > 0:30:04and your time was up, this is your Nirvana, to mix bands.
0:30:05 > 0:30:09Just this splendid explosion
0:30:09 > 0:30:15of vines and drapes and fronds.
0:30:15 > 0:30:19It's also got this great sensuality, these writhing plants.
0:30:19 > 0:30:21What could be more earthy?
0:30:21 > 0:30:26It's a Christian mortuary chapel, but there's something almost pagan
0:30:26 > 0:30:29and pre-Christian about it.
0:30:29 > 0:30:31I don't know whether to light a candle
0:30:31 > 0:30:34or cover myself in woad and dance naked.
0:30:39 > 0:30:42Hello, Rebecca, how are you? I'm Stephen.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45- Do come in and join me. It's chilly, isn't it?- It is, yes.
0:30:45 > 0:30:48Very nice to meet you. Now, what have you got there?
0:30:48 > 0:30:53- I've got a photograph of my great-grandmother.- May I handle it?
0:30:53 > 0:30:57You may, yes. This is my great-grandmother, Alice Jacobs.
0:30:57 > 0:31:00So that must be Mary?
0:31:00 > 0:31:03That's Mary, the designer of the chapel.
0:31:03 > 0:31:06So this place has a special family connection for you, doesn't it?
0:31:06 > 0:31:09It does, yes. I've been coming up here all my life.
0:31:09 > 0:31:13And because it's so extraordinary and a little bit secluded,
0:31:13 > 0:31:16it could almost be as if your great-grandmother
0:31:16 > 0:31:19had just stepped away from here. Do you have that sense?
0:31:19 > 0:31:23Absolutely, yes. Definitely. It just hasn't changed over the years.
0:31:23 > 0:31:26You can come in here and definitely feel
0:31:26 > 0:31:27like you were here 100 years ago.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30I love it.
0:31:30 > 0:31:33And I actually think it's quite life-affirming.
0:31:35 > 0:31:38Which is odd, considering it's a chapel of rest, isn't it?
0:31:38 > 0:31:43Yes, but I don't think the Watts saw death as a bad thing.
0:31:43 > 0:31:48Watts painted pictures of death as a young woman,
0:31:48 > 0:31:52not as a scary old crone.
0:31:52 > 0:31:54After years of hard work,
0:31:54 > 0:31:57the chapel interior was finally completed in 1904,
0:31:57 > 0:32:00the year Signor GF Watts died.
0:32:03 > 0:32:06Mary survived him by another 34 years
0:32:06 > 0:32:09and went on to establish the Compton Pottery
0:32:09 > 0:32:11with her local craftsmen.
0:32:11 > 0:32:14The chapel was little known in her time,
0:32:14 > 0:32:16but with these terracotta pots,
0:32:16 > 0:32:21Mary's unique version of Art Nouveau reached a much wider audience.
0:32:21 > 0:32:23They were admired and sold to the masses
0:32:23 > 0:32:29by an influential family friend, Arthur Lasenby Liberty.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33Liberty, who'd built a global empire of department stores
0:32:33 > 0:32:35at the end of the 19th Century,
0:32:35 > 0:32:39was the key figure in the mass production and spread
0:32:39 > 0:32:42of this British version of Art Nouveau.
0:32:42 > 0:32:44By the beginning of the 20th Century,
0:32:44 > 0:32:48the very name Liberty had become a byword for the style.
0:32:49 > 0:32:54This is Liberty's department store in the West End of London.
0:32:54 > 0:32:56With its half-timbered Tudor-bethan facade,
0:32:56 > 0:33:00it's managed to persuade tourists and shoppers alike
0:33:00 > 0:33:04that it's quintessentially English and that it's been here forever.
0:33:04 > 0:33:06That's wrong on both counts.
0:33:11 > 0:33:13Liberty was a humble warehouse manager
0:33:13 > 0:33:20when he opened his own shop in 1875 using a loan from his father.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23With his canny knack for spotting a cultural trend,
0:33:23 > 0:33:27he became the art lover's retailer.
0:33:27 > 0:33:29First an importer of exotic decorative arts,
0:33:29 > 0:33:33he soon began retailing the work of British designers
0:33:33 > 0:33:35under his own name.
0:33:35 > 0:33:39The famous Liberty peacock print is still popular today.
0:33:40 > 0:33:45Selling silks, clothes, rugs, jewellery and furniture,
0:33:45 > 0:33:48Liberty's empire quickly expanded.
0:33:48 > 0:33:52Anna, it feels as though we're in an Eastern bazaar here.
0:33:52 > 0:33:55We're not, though. Where are we?
0:33:55 > 0:33:58We're in the Liberty carpet department,
0:33:58 > 0:34:00but, actually, that's one of the departments
0:34:00 > 0:34:02that very much reflects
0:34:02 > 0:34:06Liberty's origins as an oriental importer
0:34:06 > 0:34:10when he first started in 1875. Liberty was an entrepreneur.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14He knew that he couldn't stay in the same style.
0:34:14 > 0:34:18He needed to grow his business, and he was one of the early people
0:34:18 > 0:34:22to sell products that we would now describe as Art Nouveau.
0:34:22 > 0:34:25So what do we have here in your book of swatches?
0:34:25 > 0:34:28Well, let's have a look and see.
0:34:28 > 0:34:32Here we've got a very typical Art Nouveau Liberty style.
0:34:32 > 0:34:36Why is that Art Nouveau?
0:34:36 > 0:34:39The stylised flowers.
0:34:39 > 0:34:42There is that sort of... You can't quite see it on here,
0:34:42 > 0:34:45but I know that the repeat has that sort of movement.
0:34:45 > 0:34:48- The famous wavy lines? - Yes, which is very Art Nouveau.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51And it has that sort of feel of hand block printing,
0:34:51 > 0:34:54to look as if it's been done by hand.
0:34:54 > 0:34:58We have another one, which is quite weird, I think.
0:34:58 > 0:35:00That's quite different, at first sight, to the last one,
0:35:00 > 0:35:02but this is still Art Nouveau you'd say?
0:35:02 > 0:35:04I think that's still Art Nouveau,
0:35:04 > 0:35:07and it's still doing that sort of shape.
0:35:07 > 0:35:12These Art Nouveau fabrics with their Arts and Crafts handmade look
0:35:12 > 0:35:15became the pinnacle of bohemian taste.
0:35:15 > 0:35:19With Liberty, you could have the Art Nouveau dress, the rug,
0:35:19 > 0:35:22the chairs, even the garden pots.
0:35:22 > 0:35:28Liberty actually got all the top designers to design for him.
0:35:28 > 0:35:30That, I think, shows what a charming person he was
0:35:30 > 0:35:32because he didn't credit them.
0:35:32 > 0:35:34He paid them, but he wouldn't have credited them,
0:35:34 > 0:35:38because he sold his designs as Liberty designs.
0:35:38 > 0:35:39He was an entrepreneur.
0:35:39 > 0:35:41That's a mixed blessing for them.
0:35:41 > 0:35:43They're getting the pay, but not the credit.
0:35:43 > 0:35:46History has forgotten them, rather.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49Well, I have no idea who's designed this,
0:35:49 > 0:35:51because, yes, that's gone, that history.
0:35:51 > 0:35:53Which is frustrating for you?
0:35:53 > 0:35:56Very frustrating for me. It must have been rather frustrating
0:35:56 > 0:35:57for the person who designed it!
0:35:58 > 0:36:02One of Liberty's most important anonymous designers
0:36:02 > 0:36:05was the painter and teacher Archibald Knox.
0:36:07 > 0:36:10'Patch Rogers, a guardian of the Liberty legacy,
0:36:10 > 0:36:12'has some Knox treasures to show me.'
0:36:12 > 0:36:16And you've brought somebody to look after it? That's very serious.
0:36:16 > 0:36:19Hello, I'm Stephen. Very nice to meet you. Hello, sir.
0:36:19 > 0:36:21- How are you?- Good.
0:36:21 > 0:36:23'Knox grew up on the Isle of Man,
0:36:23 > 0:36:26'a tiny island in the Irish sea.'
0:36:28 > 0:36:31Inspired by its ancient Celtic crosses,
0:36:31 > 0:36:35he designed Art Nouveau silver and pewterware for Liberty
0:36:35 > 0:36:39that was characterised by a Celtic twist.
0:36:39 > 0:36:41So what about this clock, Patch?
0:36:41 > 0:36:44It's got a playful quality, hasn't it?
0:36:44 > 0:36:48It has. It's got that slightly kind of animated look,
0:36:48 > 0:36:53I think, and I think Knox was drawing inspiration very much
0:36:53 > 0:36:57from his Celtic origin.
0:36:57 > 0:37:00Being on the Isle of Man, he would have studied the Celtic crosses
0:37:00 > 0:37:02in the cemeteries and churchyards
0:37:02 > 0:37:05and was drawing inspiration from that. I mean, it looks like a cross.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09With his marketing nouse,
0:37:09 > 0:37:12Liberty gave these designs faux historical names -
0:37:12 > 0:37:15Cymric silver and Tudric pewter.
0:37:16 > 0:37:18Other designers worked on the ranges,
0:37:18 > 0:37:21but Liberty spotted Knox's outstanding talent
0:37:21 > 0:37:23and worked closely with him.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29This is the earliest piece, this is about 1899.
0:37:29 > 0:37:31You have the sort of cleanness of the silver
0:37:31 > 0:37:35and then you have these applied handles, in a very organic,
0:37:35 > 0:37:42sinuous line, giving you that very much Art Nouveau feel.
0:37:42 > 0:37:46You also had the rivets, which was a way of showing craftsmanship.
0:37:50 > 0:37:54The silver pieces were handmade, but not by Knox himself.
0:37:54 > 0:37:59The pewter, designed by Knox to mimic the handmade look,
0:37:59 > 0:38:04were actually machine-made, a crime against Arts and Crafts principles.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07But with his lower production costs and a big retail market,
0:38:07 > 0:38:10Liberty was laughing all the way to the bank.
0:38:12 > 0:38:15- How did he market them? - Through mail order, catalogues.
0:38:15 > 0:38:17Obviously through the store,
0:38:17 > 0:38:20but at the time, you had stores in Paris
0:38:20 > 0:38:24and other places as well. I think there was one in Buenos Aires.
0:38:24 > 0:38:27- Right, so the mail order was the internet of its day?- Absolutely.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31As the catalogue says,
0:38:31 > 0:38:34"Designed and worked exclusively by Liberty & Co."
0:38:34 > 0:38:36Smart.
0:38:36 > 0:38:39The ranges were so successful that in Italy
0:38:39 > 0:38:41Art Nouveau became known as Stile Liberte.
0:38:42 > 0:38:47Knox's career, not surprisingly, took a different course.
0:38:49 > 0:38:53He stayed friends with the Liberty family, but he was a retiring man.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56Never publicly credited for his designs in his lifetime,
0:38:56 > 0:39:00he ended his days unknown, back on the Isle of Man,
0:39:00 > 0:39:02painting watercolours.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07His tombstone reads "Archibald Knox, artist,
0:39:07 > 0:39:11"humble servant of God in the ministry of the beautiful."
0:39:11 > 0:39:13I'll raise a pewter tankard to that.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25Other retailers wanted to cash in on Liberty's Art Nouveau success.
0:39:27 > 0:39:29When Harrods was redesigned in 1902,
0:39:29 > 0:39:32the owners hired a fashionable young ceramicist
0:39:32 > 0:39:35to give their meat hall the new look.
0:39:35 > 0:39:38Born in Barnsley and trained as an architect,
0:39:38 > 0:39:41William Neatby worked with Doulton's tiles
0:39:41 > 0:39:45and borrowed from the medieval churches of his Northern childhood
0:39:45 > 0:39:48to create this extraordinary frieze.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52This is a kind of idyllic scene of an Arcadian Albion
0:39:52 > 0:39:54that never quite was,
0:39:54 > 0:39:58a 19th-Century view back to medieval England.
0:39:58 > 0:40:02It's almost like the storyboard for a panto
0:40:02 > 0:40:04because they have this 19th-century view
0:40:04 > 0:40:07of how the medieval Briton dressed,
0:40:07 > 0:40:11its doublet and hose, nice dinky little pixie boots,
0:40:11 > 0:40:14lovely hats, but they're all spotless and pristine.
0:40:16 > 0:40:19You have to love the whimsy and nonsense of this.
0:40:19 > 0:40:25In Neatby's panto of rural life, the happy hunter always bags his duck.
0:40:26 > 0:40:30Neatby's brilliance lay in the graphic quality of his work
0:40:30 > 0:40:35which complimented its surroundings rather than competed with them.
0:40:35 > 0:40:39Neatby spares us the horror of Bambi's death scene
0:40:39 > 0:40:43so we don't have that distasteful thought in our heads as we stand
0:40:43 > 0:40:45at the counter and pay for the weekend joint.
0:40:47 > 0:40:52Morris and Beardsley must be chuckling in their graves.
0:40:52 > 0:40:53Chicken anyone?
0:40:57 > 0:41:00Many shopping arcades were thrown up at the end of the 19th century
0:41:00 > 0:41:04and Neatby's colourful ceramic schemes became a popular
0:41:04 > 0:41:08cutting-edge adornment to the new retail experience,
0:41:08 > 0:41:10as here in Norwich.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14If you were part of Norfolk's fashionable society then this arcade
0:41:14 > 0:41:19was the place to see and be seen and maybe splash the cash.
0:41:19 > 0:41:23You wanted something to attest to your taste, to your sense of
0:41:23 > 0:41:27what was hip and happening so why not pick up Art Nouveau fabrics,
0:41:27 > 0:41:31perhaps a nice piece of silverware from Liberty's
0:41:31 > 0:41:34or maybe even get the fireplace tiled
0:41:34 > 0:41:38with Doulton's finest ceramics, that was the thing to do.
0:41:38 > 0:41:42Neatby was head of architectural tiles at Doulton's ceramics
0:41:42 > 0:41:46when its Art Nouveau ranges were selling like hotcakes.
0:41:46 > 0:41:51Most of them have been torn down from fireplaces and doorways now,
0:41:51 > 0:41:54but this arcade preserves some of that legacy.
0:41:56 > 0:41:58Today, Art Nouveau remains highly collectable
0:41:58 > 0:42:01and can secure huge prices at auction.
0:42:03 > 0:42:06I've come to central London to visit auctioneers Christie's
0:42:06 > 0:42:09who are putting on a sale.
0:42:09 > 0:42:11There are more fancy goods in these parts
0:42:11 > 0:42:14than you can shake a silver-topped cane at.
0:42:14 > 0:42:18Small wonder the antiques trade, as practised around here,
0:42:18 > 0:42:22is at its most luxuriant, its most subtle, its most refined.
0:42:22 > 0:42:23Hello, Colin.
0:42:23 > 0:42:25Good afternoon, Mr Smith.
0:42:26 > 0:42:29Here's a fine range of Knox pieces
0:42:29 > 0:42:32with their Celtic Art Nouveau swirls.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39And glass by the great French designer Emile Galle.
0:42:43 > 0:42:47But the Art Nouveau story also played out in Scotland.
0:42:47 > 0:42:51Silver Apples of the Moon by the Glasgow-based artist
0:42:51 > 0:42:56Margaret MacDonald was created around 1912.
0:42:56 > 0:43:01It's a example of what's been called "Scotto-continental" Art Nouveau.
0:43:01 > 0:43:03Catchy.
0:43:05 > 0:43:08It's a lot that I personally am passionately in love with.
0:43:08 > 0:43:10If I could take it home I would, I absolutely love it.
0:43:10 > 0:43:15What can you tell me about the Art Nouveau quality of this work?
0:43:15 > 0:43:19Very much, we have a fascination with nature
0:43:19 > 0:43:23and the human relationship with nature.
0:43:23 > 0:43:29The woman metamorphoses from a berry to a trout, to a woman,
0:43:29 > 0:43:32then dissipates into nature again.
0:43:33 > 0:43:39Also, there's a deep underlying mystery about the work.
0:43:39 > 0:43:44But also we have this sense of the bejewelled maiden,
0:43:44 > 0:43:48but actually, very much, she's the femme fatale at the same time,
0:43:48 > 0:43:53which you can pick up in the slightly spooky hands.
0:43:53 > 0:43:55Very spooky actually.
0:43:55 > 0:43:59They're very skeletal and elongated
0:43:59 > 0:44:03- and just the positioning of them is quite...- Quite haunting.
0:44:03 > 0:44:04Yes.
0:44:04 > 0:44:09And there's a good reason why this lot is raising pulses at Christie's.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13MacDonald's work is actually rather rare and the last time a piece
0:44:13 > 0:44:16of hers came to sale, it changed auction history.
0:44:17 > 0:44:22The White Rose and the Red Rose was estimated
0:44:22 > 0:44:24at between £200-300,000.
0:44:24 > 0:44:30But actually on the day the bidding war was fierce and very exciting.
0:44:30 > 0:44:35The sale room held its breath and The White Rose And The Red Rose
0:44:35 > 0:44:37finally realised 1.7 million,
0:44:37 > 0:44:39- which was very, very exciting... - That's extraordinary!
0:44:39 > 0:44:41..and a world record.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47During her lifetime, Margaret MacDonald
0:44:47 > 0:44:51was derided in Britain far more than she was appreciated.
0:44:51 > 0:44:55She worked in the shadow of her more famous husband,
0:44:55 > 0:44:59the Art Nouveau architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
0:45:00 > 0:45:03They met when they were both studying
0:45:03 > 0:45:06at the old Glasgow School of Art in the 1890s.
0:45:07 > 0:45:11Along with her sister, Frances, and her husband, Herbert MacNair,
0:45:11 > 0:45:12they were known as "The Four".
0:45:15 > 0:45:18This is the Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow -
0:45:18 > 0:45:21during a period of intense collaboration in the 1890s,
0:45:21 > 0:45:23The Four designed these posters.
0:45:25 > 0:45:27The long, stylised figures
0:45:27 > 0:45:30were inspired by Aubrey Beardsley illustrations,
0:45:30 > 0:45:33which they'd seen in The Studio Magazine.
0:45:33 > 0:45:35But the press went in with their hatchets,
0:45:35 > 0:45:40dubbing their strange new style "the Spook School", and it was
0:45:40 > 0:45:45the two women, Margaret and Frances, who got most of the stick.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49One pundit even wrote a witty verse about them.
0:45:51 > 0:45:56"Would you witness a conception of the woman "really" new
0:45:56 > 0:46:00"without the least deception from the artist's point of view.
0:46:00 > 0:46:04"See the Art School exhibition in the Rue de Sauchiehall,
0:46:04 > 0:46:09"They don't charge you for admission for they haven't got the gall."
0:46:13 > 0:46:17Margaret and Frances struggled to get work but Charles and Herbert
0:46:17 > 0:46:21had day jobs with a local firm of architects.
0:46:23 > 0:46:27Charles started work on the design that would immortalise him -
0:46:27 > 0:46:30the Glasgow School of Art, as we know it today.
0:46:30 > 0:46:32Mackintosh's masterpiece,
0:46:32 > 0:46:36and the pinnacle of what we now know as the Glasgow Style.
0:46:36 > 0:46:41Mackintosh, quite rightly, takes the sole credit for
0:46:41 > 0:46:45this astonishing building, but the groundwork for the style had
0:46:45 > 0:46:48been laid during his collaboration with The Four.
0:46:49 > 0:46:52Here are those long Japanese forms again -
0:46:52 > 0:46:55and Art Nouveau decorative flourishes,
0:46:55 > 0:47:00but Mackintosh elevates them to the towering scale of a Scottish castle.
0:47:05 > 0:47:07This is such a theatrical space,
0:47:07 > 0:47:10with the gallery and the lighting effects.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14Rennie Mackintosh was a real architectural impresario.
0:47:14 > 0:47:16He cast such a shadow
0:47:16 > 0:47:19it would be difficult for anyone to emerge from it.
0:47:20 > 0:47:24And Margaret never did quite manage to.
0:47:24 > 0:47:25After their marriage in 1900,
0:47:25 > 0:47:28her collaboration with Charles intensified.
0:47:31 > 0:47:34They moved to a smart new town house
0:47:34 > 0:47:36which they redesigned in the Glasgow Style.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40Today you can find it at the Hunterian Art Gallery,
0:47:40 > 0:47:43just as if the couple had got up and left it
0:47:43 > 0:47:45to go out and buy some oatcakes.
0:47:47 > 0:47:49Now, remember the art school, and look at this...
0:47:54 > 0:47:56Walking through this intimate space
0:47:56 > 0:47:59I feel like Goldilocks when the three bears were out.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05I keep expecting the Mackintoshes to come back with their groceries.
0:48:06 > 0:48:10The couple created this as a home in 1906,
0:48:10 > 0:48:12but also as a showcase for their style.
0:48:13 > 0:48:17Here's that long Japonesque shape again in the chairs
0:48:17 > 0:48:20and the writing desk, but now there's a new motif -
0:48:20 > 0:48:22the Celtic rose that's become
0:48:22 > 0:48:26an emblem of the Glasgow Style and of the city itself.
0:48:31 > 0:48:35It's tremendously pristine, isn't it? And calm and minimalist
0:48:35 > 0:48:39and rather soothing, as if perhaps a fresh drift of snow
0:48:39 > 0:48:42was banked up against the windows.
0:48:42 > 0:48:43But this was Glasgow,
0:48:43 > 0:48:46one of the great industrial centres of the world.
0:48:46 > 0:48:51Within earshot, factory hooters were going off, steam locomotives
0:48:51 > 0:48:56hammering to and fro, and on the Clyde, the noise of the rivets
0:48:56 > 0:48:58being punched into the steel hulls
0:48:58 > 0:49:01of the ships that dominated the world.
0:49:01 > 0:49:04But you'd never guess any of that was going on
0:49:04 > 0:49:07from the sanatorium hush of this space.
0:49:07 > 0:49:12For them, it was a refuge, a spotless, germ-free environment
0:49:12 > 0:49:16in which they could be together and celebrate their love
0:49:16 > 0:49:19and, as lovers have done through all eternity,
0:49:19 > 0:49:21shut out the rest of the world,
0:49:21 > 0:49:23almost hermetically in this case.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29Margaret worked in metals and fabrics
0:49:29 > 0:49:31but I've come to talk to Pamela Robertson,
0:49:31 > 0:49:34curator of the gallery, about the panel above the fireplace.
0:49:36 > 0:49:37Isn't this the panel
0:49:37 > 0:49:41that went for nearly two million quid not so long ago?
0:49:41 > 0:49:43Well, actually it's not.
0:49:43 > 0:49:45- It's not? Oh. - It looks very like it,
0:49:45 > 0:49:50but the one that was at auction is a duplicate version of this one.
0:49:50 > 0:49:55This one came to the university through Margaret MacDonald's family.
0:49:55 > 0:49:57And then the other version,
0:49:57 > 0:50:00which was owned by a great Viennese collector, Fritz Waerndorfer,
0:50:00 > 0:50:05and went through his family and then out into the open market,
0:50:05 > 0:50:08and that was sold at auction for that world record price.
0:50:08 > 0:50:09What about this panel?
0:50:09 > 0:50:13I mean, first of all is this how Margaret intended us to see it?
0:50:13 > 0:50:15Largely, yes.
0:50:15 > 0:50:18I mean it's astonishing, given that it's made of gesso,
0:50:18 > 0:50:20a sort of plaster-based medium and is very fragile,
0:50:20 > 0:50:23that we see it pretty much intact.
0:50:23 > 0:50:27'During her lifetime, Mary's innovative decorative panels
0:50:27 > 0:50:30'made a huge impact on continental Art Nouveau.'
0:50:33 > 0:50:36The May Queen, exhibited in Vienna in 1900, impressed
0:50:36 > 0:50:41the golden boy of Viennese Art Nouveau, Gustav Klimt himself.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45He struck up a friendship with the Mackintoshes,
0:50:45 > 0:50:47and particularly with Margaret.
0:50:49 > 0:50:51And the unlettered eye might say this reminds me
0:50:51 > 0:50:55a lot of Klimt, but actually the artistic boot's on
0:50:55 > 0:50:58the other foot there really, isn't it?
0:50:58 > 0:51:00I mean she influenced him, is that right?
0:51:00 > 0:51:03There was a bit of a dialogue but I think you can certainly say
0:51:03 > 0:51:05it started with her and Mackintosh's work
0:51:05 > 0:51:09when they both exhibited large-scale decorative gesso friezes
0:51:09 > 0:51:12in Vienna at the Eighth Vienna Secession Exhibition.
0:51:12 > 0:51:17And that notion of large friezes facing each other across a room,
0:51:17 > 0:51:19decorative, as this panel is,
0:51:19 > 0:51:22certainly had a profound influence on Klimt
0:51:22 > 0:51:24and his later decorative work.
0:51:26 > 0:51:31Two years after The May Queen, Klimt created the Beethoven Frieze,
0:51:31 > 0:51:33the first of his own decorative panels.
0:51:35 > 0:51:37Despite her connection to Klimt,
0:51:37 > 0:51:40one of the giants of 20th century Art Nouveau,
0:51:40 > 0:51:44Margaret MacDonald is still not widely appreciated
0:51:44 > 0:51:49in Britain outside the gilded world of art galleries and auctions.
0:51:49 > 0:51:53Speaking of which, it's the day of the Christie's sale.
0:51:54 > 0:51:57Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh, Silver Apples Of The Moon.
0:51:57 > 0:52:01I point out that this is on vellum, and not paper.
0:52:01 > 0:52:06Lot 68 will open at £30,000...
0:52:06 > 0:52:08The couple never received
0:52:08 > 0:52:12the recognition in Glasgow that they won on the continent.
0:52:12 > 0:52:18Charles' last commission in his home town was in 1906.
0:52:18 > 0:52:22They moved to London in 1914 and then to France
0:52:22 > 0:52:24but their fortunes never looked up.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27Margaret didn't work after 1921
0:52:27 > 0:52:32and when she died her entire estate was worth only £88.
0:52:32 > 0:52:36Any more? At 85, still with you.
0:52:36 > 0:52:3790,000.
0:52:37 > 0:52:3995,000.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43And selling at £95,000.
0:52:43 > 0:52:47No more? 95,000.
0:52:47 > 0:52:48It's yours.
0:52:48 > 0:52:51How times have changed.
0:52:54 > 0:53:00After Margaret MacDonald's death in 1933, it seemed like the last
0:53:00 > 0:53:03of British Art Nouveau had gone with her,
0:53:03 > 0:53:05but our story doesn't end there.
0:53:18 > 0:53:24It was 1966, Beatles, Carnaby Street, Flower Power.
0:53:24 > 0:53:27So who do you suppose the V&A dedicated
0:53:27 > 0:53:29a prestigious exhibition to?
0:53:29 > 0:53:33None other than the pioneer of Art Nouveau in this country,
0:53:33 > 0:53:35Aubrey Beardsley himself.
0:53:35 > 0:53:40That's right. He was reinstated as an icon of trendy, happening London.
0:53:43 > 0:53:46Victorian Britain associated Beardsley's sensuous curves
0:53:46 > 0:53:51with degeneracy, but in the sexually liberated '60s, they chimed
0:53:51 > 0:53:55with the swirling psychedelia and with the hippie movement.
0:53:57 > 0:54:02Gerald Scarfe, himself a child of those days, is today
0:54:02 > 0:54:06the celebrated political caricaturist of The Sunday Times.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09He acknowledges his own debt to Beardsley,
0:54:09 > 0:54:12the once defamed pioneer of Art Nouveau.
0:54:13 > 0:54:17This one I did for The Sunday Times of Stalin here.
0:54:17 > 0:54:21I picked up really on Beardsley's ability to have these very,
0:54:21 > 0:54:27very fine lines and these dramatic blocks of colour which, you know,
0:54:27 > 0:54:29picks that drawing up.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32But this, I hope, does have some sort of impact because he was
0:54:32 > 0:54:35part of my consciousness at that time and people compared me
0:54:35 > 0:54:40to Beardsley, so I was extra interested and wondered why.
0:54:40 > 0:54:44So that whack of black I sort of learned from him.
0:54:44 > 0:54:47That was, you know, a good way to do it.
0:54:48 > 0:54:53'When Beardsley was the talk of the town again in 1967,
0:54:53 > 0:54:56'Scarfe was commissioned by the New Statesman to create
0:54:56 > 0:55:01'a caricature of the iconoclastic illustrator, and this is where
0:55:01 > 0:55:05'viewers of a sensitive disposition should please avert their eyes.'
0:55:05 > 0:55:08Well, I mean, in true caricaturist style,
0:55:08 > 0:55:10I have exaggerated everything.
0:55:10 > 0:55:14I have exaggerated Beardsley's exaggeration.
0:55:14 > 0:55:19And I think, you know, that may have to be censored for the BBC.
0:55:20 > 0:55:24But, I am pretty certain that will have to be, that bit there.
0:55:29 > 0:55:31There we are, darling Aubrey.
0:55:36 > 0:55:39When Scarfe was in his Beardsley phase in the 1960s,
0:55:39 > 0:55:42a wealthy and influential couple,
0:55:42 > 0:55:45on the crest of this new wave of Art Nouveau,
0:55:45 > 0:55:47started a collection of their own.
0:55:51 > 0:55:52At the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich,
0:55:52 > 0:55:54the team is preparing to put it on show.
0:55:55 > 0:55:58It was collected by Sir Colin Anderson and Lady Anderson
0:55:58 > 0:56:00over a period of years, starting in the '60s,
0:56:00 > 0:56:03which classically is when a lot of the contemporary,
0:56:03 > 0:56:07the great Art Nouveau collections started coming together.
0:56:07 > 0:56:09There was a big revival then, of interest?
0:56:09 > 0:56:12Huge revival. I always think it's based on the Beatles' lyrics.
0:56:12 > 0:56:15A lot of the Beatles' album covers used Art Nouveau.
0:56:15 > 0:56:18It was big revival alongside pop art.
0:56:20 > 0:56:22And at the beginning of the 21st century,
0:56:22 > 0:56:26the significance of the style is being reassessed again.
0:56:31 > 0:56:33The main point, I think, in a way,
0:56:33 > 0:56:38is to rescue Art Nouveau from the 19th century and show it
0:56:38 > 0:56:44as being the first modern style, the first attempt self-consciously by
0:56:44 > 0:56:47designers in England and in Europe to make something modern -
0:56:47 > 0:56:50the modern age really begins with these designers
0:56:50 > 0:56:52and what they were up to.
0:56:57 > 0:56:59It's hard to exaggerate now
0:56:59 > 0:57:04just how bold and ambitious Art Nouveau was in its heyday
0:57:04 > 0:57:06just over a century ago,
0:57:06 > 0:57:10when a more insular society was wary of anything
0:57:10 > 0:57:12too cosmopolitan, too foreign.
0:57:15 > 0:57:18Art Nouveau was the first truly international style,
0:57:18 > 0:57:21bridging the old century and the new.
0:57:21 > 0:57:25These days, we understand that for a design movement to be successful
0:57:25 > 0:57:29it has to be global, it has to be international,
0:57:29 > 0:57:35and we recognise that "foreign" and "new" aren't dirty words.
0:57:41 > 0:57:43Next time,
0:57:43 > 0:57:48I'm in Vienna, where Gustav Klimt and a gang of rebellious artists
0:57:48 > 0:57:51won their artistic freedom and transformed the city in
0:57:51 > 0:57:55an art revolution that was sealed with a kiss.
0:58:04 > 0:58:07Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd