William Simmonds: The Silent Heart of the Arts and Crafts Movement - Hardcover

Douglas-Home, Jessica

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1911604759 ISBN 13: 9781911604754

Publisher: Unicorn Publishing Group, 2019

Synopsis

The Silent Heart of the Arts and Crafts Movement pulls back the curtain on the work of William Simmonds, an expert woodcarver, puppet maker, and one of the forgotten masters of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Simmonds worked in tandem with his wife, Eve, to construct puppets, eventually gaining notice as one of the leading practitioners of the form in Europe. Far less known, however, are his exquisite sculptures in pine, oak, and ebony, which he used to depict the animals and farm scenes of his beloved Cotswolds. Simmonds rubbed elbows with John Singer Sargent, E.H. Shepard, D.H. Lawrence, and the Barnsley brothers, and Jessica Douglas-Home’s new book aims to establish his rightful position among the artistic luminaries of his time.
This story of an underappreciated master of the Arts and Crafts Movement—a movement which arose in response to an industrializing world—should have special resonance in light of the contemporary surge of interest in handmade goods and the rise of “maker culture” in our digital age.

About this title

About the Author

Jessica Douglas-Home is the author of The Life and Times of Violet Gordon Woodhouse, a Whitbread prize nominee. She has written for The Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian, Standpoint, The Spectator, The Times Literary Supplement and The New Criterion.

Review

"Jessica Douglas-Home’s fascinating new biography of this elusive figure . . . . offers a marvellous wealth of detail, taking in Eve and William’s background and social circle, William’s unexpected war work, their startlingly catholic range of friendships and William’s extraordinary successes in the 1920s and 1930s. . . . . She writes lyrically of the landscape and atmosphere of the Golden Valley of Gloucestershire. . . . William Simmonds is an impressive achievement." (Literary Review)

"Simmonds emerges as an enthralling figure . . . . [T]he level and variety of documentation is a biographer’s dream. Jessica Douglas-Home makes full use of it, in elegant prose. We can follow his life, friendships, marriage, and artistic career in thrilling detail. . . . As a tribute to an unusual and gifted man, this book may have had a long gestation, but it’s as much a masterpiece as the puppets." (New Criterion)

"Jessica Douglas-Home's claim that [William Simmonds] is 'forgotten' is broadly true, since his name is rarely mentioned in the extensive literature on the Arts and Crafts movement published since [his death]. Now, using letters and diaries, she has vividly revealed his life story (and Eve's, too) in all its artistic, social and ideological detail." (The Art Newspapaer)

Edition details

• Publisher: Unicorn Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1911604759
• ISBN 13: 9781911604754
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 350