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Halsey Ricardo

A Life in Arts & Crafts

Mark Bertram author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd

Publishing:26th Mar '25

£55.00

This title is due to be published on 26th March, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

Halsey Ricardo cover

English architect and designer Halsey Ricardo (1854-1928) was a champion of craftsmanship and the Arts & Crafts movement as well as an influential thinker and teacher. Mark Bertram’s engaging illustrated biography, which draws on previously unpublished correspondence, is the first book to place Ricardo’s work and ideas within a broader social and cultural context. It includes a complete survey of Ricardo’s architecture, including all his built works, many of which have been listed, as well as unexecuted proposals and competition entries.

Ricardo was well known as an Arts & Crafts figure on account of his business partnership of 10 years with William De Morgan, for whom he designed tiles, vases, and other artefacts, as well as for his role as head of architecture at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, and his lectures and essays. From his letters, talks and articles, quoted here for the first time, Ricardo emerges as a most engaging personality, as well as an intelligent and forward-looking thinker and a gifted lecturer and essayist. His architectural work is revealed as individualistic, sometimes exceptional, and his best-known buildings, 8 Addison Road, London (designed for Ernest Debenham in 1905) and Howrah Station, Calcutta (1901), both reflect his innovative use of colour and glazed materials.

This book paints a fascinating picture of the life of a jobbing architect and lecturer, with insights into the architectural training and professional practice of this period, as well as into the thinking behind the Arts & Crafts movement.

ISBN: 9781848227200

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

224 pages