Robin Day (designer)

A couple of postings ago I featured the mid-century textile designs of Lucienne Day, half of the dynamic duo, Robin and Lucienne Day. Robin, born 1915, is famous as a furniture designer, in fact he's best known for his injection moulded polypropylene stacking chair, of which over 20 million have been manufactured. It was one of the first pieces of furniture to fully use the mass-manufacturing opportunities of injection moulding.

Robin Day graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1938. In 1942 he married the textile designer, Lucienne Conradi. They both opened a design office in 1948 and Day began working as a freelance exhibition, graphic and industrial designer.

A room setting at the 1951 Milan Triennale

Robin Day with textiles designed by Lucienne Day

In 1949 Day entered the 'International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design' held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Day won first prize with Clive Latimer for his wooden and tubular metal storage units.

Day was commissioned by Hills International to design modern furniture for the 1949 'British Industry Fair'. In 1950 Day designed Hill's corporate identity and became the company’s chief designer.

In 1951 Day was awarded a Gold Medal at the Milan Triennale for his design of his 'Homes and Gardens' pavilion at the Festival of Britain.
From 1962 to 1963 Day worked on the Polyprop chair. From 1963 to the present day over 14 million chairs have been sold in twenty three countries. It has been described as one of the most democratic modern designs of the 20th century.

Hillestack chair

The RD1 is an outdoor table is designed for longevity of use. It was originally designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain and has lost none of impact since the. The frame is made from tubular steel and epoxy coated. The table slats are made from sustainable acacia wood so that the chair weathers well. The form is particularly rigid, aided by the wide positioning of the legs. An understated design, the RD1 is rational and universal in spirit.

RD1 table

Polo chair

Magis Sussex table

Avian sofa

Club armchair

41 Chair 1962

'Hille Interplan bench

Hille Interplan sideboard 1954

Pye radio 1965

Royal Festival Hall Dining Chair 1951

Polypropylene Armchair

Polypropylene Chair 1963

Q Rod Chair 1953

Reclining Chair 1952

Royal Festival Hall Armchair 1951

John Atkinson Grimshaw

In an exchange on Twitter the other day with the marvellous actor James A. Fleet (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Vicar of Dibley, and I believe made for the role of Frederick Dorrit in BBC’s ‘Little Dorrit’) about the marvellous painter John Atkinson Grimshaw I have been prompted to take another look at Grimshaw’s beautifully atmospheric works.

John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 – 1893) was a Victorian painter known for his city scenes and landscapes. He was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement initially but soon found his own ‘voice’, painting mainly urban scenes at twilight, dawn, and at night. He also indulged in some fashionable fairy paintings but personally I don’t think they’re among his best works.

He was born 6 September 1836 in Leeds. In 1856 he married his cousin Frances Hubbard (1835-1917). In 1861, at the age of 24, to the dismay of his parents, he departed from his first job as a clerk for the Great Northern Railway to pursue a career in art.

Grimshaw's paintings were sold in two art galleries, smaller picture dealers and a couple of bookshops in Leeds. One of his main customers was Thomas Fenteman, who owned an antiquarian booksellers. Fenteman was a deeply religious man and would only buy the pictures after Grimshaw had confirmed that they had not been painted on a Sunday.

He began exhibiting in 1862, under the patronage of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, with paintings mainly of birds, fruit, and blossoms. Grimshaw became a popular artist in Leeds and in 1865 he was able to move with his wife to a more expensive part of the city. William Agnew, a London art dealer, began purchasing his work. Further success came when a picture by Grimshaw was accepted by the Royal Academy. By 1870 Grimshaw was in a position to buy Knostrop Old Hall, a large seventeenth-century manor house, two miles from Leeds. Fanny Grimshaw gave birth to fifteen children but only six reached adulthood.

Several of his children, Arthur Grimshaw (1864-1913), Louis H Grimshaw (1870-1944), Wilfred Grimshaw (1871-1937) and Elaine Grimshaw (1877-1970), also became painters.