INTERNATIONAL ARTS & CRAFTS

The V&A's major spring exhibition, International Arts and Crafts, will be the most comprehensive ever UK exhibition on the movement and the first to look at it from a truly international perspective. It will show how Arts and Crafts originated in Britain in the 1880s and became the first British design movement to have widespread influence internationally as the ideas spread to America, Europe, Scandinavia, and Japan.

On display will be more than 300 of the best Arts and Crafts objects from simple folk craft to sophisticated objects made for wealthy patrons. Among the highlights will be four specially created room sets emphasising the importance of the Arts and Crafts home and interior. There will be two British sets (one urban and one rural), one American 'Craftsman' room and one Japanese 'model room' dating from 1928, recreated through recently rediscovered objects.

Arts & Crafts objects on display include textiles, stained glass, furniture, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, books, architecture, photography, paintings and sculpture, by influential designers such as Voysey, Mackintosh, Ashbee, Morris, Baillie Scott and De Morgan.

Arts and Crafts was both a movement and a style, a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and its machine dominated production. Led by John Ruskin and William Morris, the movement promoted the ideals of craftsmanship, individualism, and the integration of art into every day life. The movement challenged the hierarchy of the arts to raise the status of craftsmen. It also advocated social reform through improved workshop conditions, a return to workshop production and a simpler way of life.

International Arts and Crafts follows the V&A's highly successful "style" exhibitions on William Morris in 1996, Art Nouveau in 2000 and Art Deco in 2003. The V&A's Modernism exhibition will open in Spring 2006.

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INTERNATIONAL ARTS & CRAFTS

mit Charles Francis Voysey, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Charles Robert Ashbee, William Morris, Baillie Scott, De Morgan