Blowing our own trumpet (well no-one else will do it for us)
Having left school and joined the long established (1960) family antique business in 1974, I progressed through the ranks, dealing in mostly pre-Victorian English furniture, bronzes and all things interesting for many years, running succesful shops in Essex and Kent, until I finally couldn't look another piece of brown furniture in the face and my interest in 20th Century design took over.
I had been collecting signed pieces of Scandinavian and Italian glass for some time and having read everything in print about the artists and designers, I discovered a whole new world, most of these guys also designed furniture, ceramics and were architects as well as artists.
This led to a large (too large!) collection and eventually with my father, we opened a second shop dealing exclusively in 20th Century Design with pieces I had collected along the way, Eames, Breuer, Aalto, Mies Van der Rohe etc. were readily available back then and I found a whole new genre to learn about.
Being an avid reader, this became an obsession and we now have a super large library from which we research many of the pieces we aren't sure about.
We have over the past 15 years, been consulted by the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Design Museum (whom we loaned several pieces for their exhibition) a Canadian museum and have supplied photographs and information for several books on the subject of 20th Century Design.
We moved entirely into 20th Century Design in 1995 and have never looked back.
We have supplied and been consulted on many movie sets during the period and have had our chairs sat upon by the likes of Michael Caine, Angelina Jolie and Kevin Spacey to name but a few.
My father has recently retired and I have been joined by Adam, another enthusiast and together we plan to forge ahead to bigger and better things, with your help of course..................
I had been collecting signed pieces of Scandinavian and Italian glass for some time and having read everything in print about the artists and designers, I discovered a whole new world, most of these guys also designed furniture, ceramics and were architects as well as artists.
This led to a large (too large!) collection and eventually with my father, we opened a second shop dealing exclusively in 20th Century Design with pieces I had collected along the way, Eames, Breuer, Aalto, Mies Van der Rohe etc. were readily available back then and I found a whole new genre to learn about.
Being an avid reader, this became an obsession and we now have a super large library from which we research many of the pieces we aren't sure about.
We have over the past 15 years, been consulted by the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Design Museum (whom we loaned several pieces for their exhibition) a Canadian museum and have supplied photographs and information for several books on the subject of 20th Century Design.
We moved entirely into 20th Century Design in 1995 and have never looked back.
We have supplied and been consulted on many movie sets during the period and have had our chairs sat upon by the likes of Michael Caine, Angelina Jolie and Kevin Spacey to name but a few.
My father has recently retired and I have been joined by Adam, another enthusiast and together we plan to forge ahead to bigger and better things, with your help of course..................