The 13th Annual Lecture
The 13th Annual Lecture will be held on Thursday 13th October 2011 at The Royal Overseas League, Park Place, St James’s Street, London SW1A 1LR.

The reception will be held in the Princess Alexandra Hall at The Royal Overseas League from 6.00 to 6.35 pm and will be followed promptly by the two lectures. The lectures finish between 8.00 and 8.10 pm.

The speakers are Carolyn Sargentson and Andrew Varah. Dr. Carolyn Sargentson is an acknowledged expert in French furniture and was, for many years, Head of the Research Department at The Victoria and Albert Museum. Her talk is called 'By Permission of the Science and Art Department: Copies of French Furniture in the South Kensington Museum'.

Andrew is one of the most respected British contemporary designer craftsmen, known internationally for producing infinity models. His talk is called 'Furniture to Die For: Meet your Maker Here'.

Dr Carolyn Sargentson

Carolyn Sargentson undertook her graduate research into eighteenth century markets for luxury goods in Paris during the 1990s. Her PhD thesis was published by the V&A and Getty Museums while she was working as a curator in the Furniture and Woodwork Collection at The Victoria and Albert Museum. After leading a project to refurbish the Museum's galleries devoted to European Arts and Design 1600-1880, she became Head of Research at the Museum. The Research Department supports research across the Museum, including exhibitions, publications, conferences and web-based projects, and also runs jointly with the Royal College of Art three MA courses in design history and material culture, as well as supporting a wide range of object based PhD research. Carolyn left the Museum in 2009, retaining an honorary position as a Senior Research Fellow, and is now working on a four-volume catalogue of French furniture in the Museum, undertaking consultancy, and teaching on the MA programme of Parsons The New School for Design/Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York.

Her lecture is based on unpublished research on the South Kensington Museum's encouragement of copying furniture in its collections. The founding collection of French furniture, the John Jones bequest, came to the Museum in 1882, and French workshops in particular used the Collection as a source for making copies. In 1899, the Museum supported the publication of plan and elevation drawings of some of these pieces, thereby further fuelling the practice of copying and retailing copies of known museum pieces. Carolyn will explore the implications of this practice for the Museum for the Trade and for collectors, and show a number of examples of these copies, made mainly in Paris between 1882 and 1910.

 

Andrew Varah

Andrew is one of the most respected of British contemporary designer craftsmen. He trained at Shoreditch College (1963-6) and, after gaining experience in both Zambia and Denmark, set up his own workshop in Warwickshire in 1975- which has been his base ever since.

Andrew's work is wide-ranging in style and influence, sometimes drawn from architectural detail and often involving intricate inlay. He is the only maker in the world producing infinity models- some of the cleverest designs in modern furniture. There is often a marked sense of humour in his work, including secret compartments which he challenges clients to find. Amongst his commissions and thrones for Wren's St Stephen Walbrook, a pair of chess chairs for the World Chess Champion, Gary Kasparov, and pieces for many public buildings and galleries around the world, including Florida and Kentucky.

Beside designing and making, Andrew has acted as an assessor or lecturer at many furniture making colleges, including Rycotewood, Lincoln, Buckingham Chilterns and Letterfrack in Ireland. He has also played an important role in the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers, including chairing the Bespoke Guild Mark Committee (2006-9) and chairing the Liveries Wood Group, for which he organised the very successful 'Branching Out' project last year.