Crafts Study Centre Archives, University for the Creative Arts

Location
  • Archives Hub Features
  • Web
  • Email
  • Telephone
      +44 (0)1252 891452
  • Address
    • Falkner Road, Farnham, GU9 7DS, England, United Kingdom
  • Opening Hours
    • By appointment only, Tuesday-Friday 10.00-17.00
  • Photographs Allowed
      Yes
  • Facilities for Disabled Persons
      The Centre is accessible to wheelchair users. An induction loop is available at reception. Electronic note-taking or signing can be provided for gallery talks (booking required).
  • Refreshment Area
      There are cafés and restaurants in the Lion & Lamb courtyard and High Street nearby
  • Archival and Other Holdings

    Our archives consist of some 30,000 items, about half of which relate to potter Bernard Leach. Personal papers in the archive support an understanding of the life and work of the crafts people associated with them, and include such items as letters, diaries, sketch books and photographs. We also have company records of businesses or guilds involved in the sale and exhibiting of crafts such as Muriel Rose's Little Gallery in London (1928-1939), the Red Rose Guild in Manchester, (1920-1962 ), the Oxford Gallery (1968-2001) and New Craftsman Gallery, St Ives.

    Particularly strong in ceramics, textiles and calligraphy, the archives relate to such makers as William Staite Murray, Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie, Denise and Rosemary Wren, Lucie Rie, Henry Hammond, Janet Leach in ceramics, Barron and Larcher, Ethel Mairet and Rita Beales in textiles and Edward Johnston and Irene Wellington in calligraphy. The papers of Robin and Heather Tanner although not relating to media within our collecting policy provide a unique insight into the life and work of a founder member of the Crafts Study Centre and his role within the history of the modern crafts movement.

  • History

    The Crafts Study Centre (CSC) was established as a registered charity in 1970 by a determined group of craftmakers and educators with the aim to protect the best of 20th century British craft. In 1977 the CSC opened at the Holburne Museum of Art, in Bath.

    The CSC founding trustees agreed from the outset that this new collection should not solely comprise of craft objects but also of supporting material, such as the journals, sketchbooks and papers of makers.

    Through gifts, purchases and bequests of craftspeople and collectors, the CSC continues to build up an important collection of objects and archives. These include the ceramics and papers of the potter, Bernard Leach; textiles, samples and source material belonging to the weaver Ethel Mairet and block-printers Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher; notes and drafts by the calligrapher and designer Edward Johnston and the work of furniture makers Ernest Gimson and Sidney Barnsley.

    In 2000, the CSC relocated to the University College for the Creative Arts at Farnham (formerly The Surrey Institute of Art and Design), where a new building was designed and constructed specially to house the collection. The Centre opened in June 2004 and, with exhibition spaces and a research room/library available by appointment, access to the collections has been greatly improved.

    The Crafts Study Centre is a unique resource to be used and enjoyed by students, researchers, practitioners and the general public now and in the future.

List of Collections(View as Search Results)