The Minister's ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art that the export decision be deferred. This reflects the archive's importance as the major resource for the study of Walter Crane as artist, designer and educator, and its outstanding significance for the study of British art and design of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The deferral will enable purchase offers to be made at or above the following recommended prices:
• The Walter Crane archive, deferred at the recommended price of £376,475 (including VAT) until after 15 March 2002. The deferral period could be extended until after 15 May 2002, if there is a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase.
Anyone interested in making an offer to purchase the archive should contact the owners' agents through:
The Secretary
The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
2-4 Cockspur Street
London SW1Y 5DH
NOTES TO EDITORS
The Walter Crane Archive
This archive includes account books, correspondence, designs diaries, notebooks, paintings, photographs, press-cuttings, proofs for book illustrations, sketchbooks, textiles, and tracings spanning Walter Crane's entire career. Its comprehensiveness provides an insight not only into Crane's finished work, but into his motivation, client network, and the artistic, family, financial, political, and social contexts in which he worked.
Walter Crane (1845-1915) played a pivotal role in British art and design during the late 19th -early 20th centuries. As a founding member of the Art Workers Guild and a founding member and long-standing president of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, he was a major figure who dominated the Arts and Crafts Movement. Crane's work as a book illustrator was successful both in terms of the numbers of books sold and in the extension of book production techniques to the cheap book market. The sense of design and skilful absorption of varied historical influences demonstrated in the books was also characteristic of Crane's work as an interior decorator and commercial designer employed by the major manufacturers of his day, in ceramics, glass, textiles, and wallpaper. He developed a style dependent on a strong use of line and an interest in symbolism which was instantly recognisable, helping to make him one of Britain's best-known designers, both at home and abroad.
The same characteristics were also shown in Crane's paintings, the symbolic and moral content of which was linked to his belief in the redemptive power of art. Crane was among a number of artists, such as William Morris, whose commitment to socialism informed their subject matter, their methods of work and their beliefs in the role and duties of an artist. Whilst Morris's writings had an enduring impact on socialist thought, the iconography developed by Walter Crane had a lasting impact on the art of the British labour movement. As a writer and educator, he influenced both contemporary and future thought. By the 1880s, Crane was regarded as one of the leading figures of the aesthetic movement and his work was highly praised on the Continent. His reputation abroad, both in Europe and the US, was promoted by participation in international exhibitions, through which he became the most prominent representative of British design.
This archive is an unequalled resource for the study of the life and work of Walter Crane and of British art and design in the late 19th-early 20th centuries. Crane's relationship with his engraver, Edmund Evans, is revealed in diary entries, proofs, and original designs. The different aspects of his illustrative work are also represented, from small black and white press advertisements to full colour children's book illustrations, and are complemented by references in the diaries and workbooks.
References in the diaries and account books also throw light on Crane's other design activities and his work as a fine artist. They are backed up by design drawings, including many for interior decoration, and some developmental sketches linked to the famous pottery made by Maw & Co. The background of family life, always an important element for Crane, is revealed in Mrs Crane's diary, photographs and the 'black books' drawn for and with his children. The development of Crane's ideas on design theory can be traced in the corrected working manuscripts of most of his books on the subject, several of which, such as the manuscript for The Language of Line, are backed up in the archive by drawings for illustration.
The archive contains the original designs for Combe Bank, one of Crane's most complete interior decorations. In his use of gesso as a decorative medium for Combe Bank, Crane played a decisive role in the revival of this medium. The friezes for the Arab Hall at Leighton House were Crane's first work in mosaic, a medium that was growing in popularity for public buildings in the late 19th century. Its use for domestic interiors was both unusual and controversial.
This is the most important collection of material relating to Walter Crane in existence. Because Crane was so prolific and involved in so many aspects of art, design and politics, the archive is also an essential source for research into British art and design in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
