International Decorative Art

Armchair

Armchair

Design Date 1895

Designer George Walton (1867-1933, Scottish)

Manufacturer George Walton & Company, Ecclesiastical and House Decorators (1888-1905), Scotland

Media mahogany wood, brass nails and cloth upholstery

Dimensions 44 x 23 1/2 x 20 1/4 inches

George Walton influenced Glasgow Style as both an architect and designer. His designs were often more reserved than other Glasgow designers like Charles Rennie Mackintosh. This particular chair was first designed for John Rowntree’s café in Yorkshire, England and Miss Cranston’s Buchanan Street tea room in Glasgow, Scotland. Walton also used it for Kodak’s European branches, for which he designed the shop fronts, interiors and furniture. The version of this chair for Rowntree’s café had a cane seat and back, contrasting with the rusticity and heaviness of the other furniture designed for the café. Though this chair’s slim, turned-out front legs are fragile, Walton used this design as the basis for many of his interior decorating schemes because its lightness fit better with more varied interiors than the typically heavier pure Glasgow style.

ON VIEW in Art Nouveau Gallery 4

Markings unmarked

Credit Line Collection Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art

Accession Number 2012.0878