Otto Prutscher (1880-1949) was an architect and a designer in all applied arts media, as well as an exhibition designer, teacher and member of all the important arts and crafts movements, from the Secession to the Wiener Werkstatte and the Werkbund. The MAK - Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna - possesses a comprehensive graphic bequest and many significant objects from Prutscher's design oeuvre. Selected examples of Prutscher's creative work document his long-lasting influential role as a designer and artistic adviser for decorative art companies from Johann Loetz to Thonet. The publication conducts an audit of Prutscher's work as a pacemaker of Viennese modernism - over twenty years since the last show in Vienna and seventy years on from his death. Text in English and German.

Discover the slow, tactile art of hand-building ceramics and express yourself through the act of creating unique, timeless pieces for your home. The Urban Potter teaches you how to make beautiful, one-off handcrafted pieces with simple, natural shapes and neutral tones. Ceramicist Emily Proctor's unique, self-taught style embraces irregularity and asymmetry - here, there is no such thing as perfection, every piece is created through an authentic, intuitive process, with no wheel required. The 24 step-by-step projects include functional homeware such as bowls, plates and vases, as well as other decorative accessories, and are ordered by difficulty, making this book suitable for anyone who wants to play with clay, from beginners through to more seasoned ceramicists. For each project, Emily guides you through the whole process and explains all the techniques involved, from slabbing and pinching, to carving and glazing, while also fully leaning into the joys of slow ceramics and the mindful, patient nature of the art.

William Morris-the great 19th century craftsman, architect, designer, poet and writer-remains a monumental figure whose influence resonates powerfully today. As an intellectual (and author of the seminal utopian News From Nowhere), his concern with artistic and human values led him to cross what he called the 'river of fire' and become a committed socialist-committed not to some theoretical formula but to the day by day struggle of working women and men in Britain and to the evolution of his ideas about art, about work and about how life should be lived. Many of his ideas accorded none too well with the reforming tendencies dominant in the Labour movement, nor with those of 'orthodox' Marxism, which has looked elsewhere for inspiration. Both sides have been inclined to venerate Morris rather than to pay attention to what he said. Originally written less than a decade before his groundbreaking The Making of the English Working Class, E.P. Thompson brought to this biography his now trademark historical mastery, passion, wit, and essential sympathy. It remains unsurpassed as the definitive work on this remarkable figure, by the major British historian of the 20th century.

The Simple Life (1981) was Fiona MacCarthy's first book, written while she was the Guardian's design correspondent (and before her acclaimed lives of Eric Gill, William Morris, and Edward Burne-Jones.) It tells of a venturesome effort to enact an Edwardian Utopia in a small town in the Cotswolds. The leader of this endeavour was progressive-minded architect Charles Robert Ashbee, who in 1888 founded the Guild of Handicraft in Whitechapel, specialising in metalworking, jewellery and furniture and informed by the desire to improve society. In 1902 Ashbee and his East London comrades removed the Guild to Chipping Campden in Gloucestershire, hoping to construct a socialistic rural idyll. MacCarthy explores the impact of the experiment on the lives of the group and on the little town they occupied - tracing the Guild's fortunes and misfortunes, hilarious and grave, and the many fellow idealists and artists who were involved (among them William Morris, Roger Fry, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb.)

Recycle, revamp and rejuvenate; with over 50 projects Sarah covers a whole spectrum of imaginative ideas for every room of the house, from blanket curtains to patchwork wallpaper, clever storage crates to fun mobiles for children, as well as unique ideas for dining, sleeping and bathing. Interweaved throughout the book are ideas for 'one thing four ways' to show how the same piece of furniture or a room can be updated with different look, plus handy advice on essential kit and techniques. Aimed at all skill levels, the projects can be completed in a few hours or over a weekend so you can revamp and refurbish your home in no time at all.

Dazzling new, original collection by a master of the genre presents more than 260 high-impact, permission-free designs that exploit to their fullest the dramatic potential of squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, and other elements. Invaluable for wallpaper and textile design, packaging and computer art, these eye-catching forms provide artists and craftspeople with angular forms, pleasant symmetries, and other great images for immediate use and inspiration. More than 260 black-and-white designs.

One of the most powerful stories of the Arts and Crafts movement: a perceptive biography of one woman's valiant life in a vanished era of emerging feminism and bold socialist thought.

C. R. Ashbee was, some would say, the key man in the British Arts and Crafts movement during the early decades of the twentieth century. Regarded as heir to William Morris in political belief and design reform, Ashbee (and his Guild of Handicraft) gained international fame in his own time and remains a legend today. While much has been written about him, little has been said of his wife. Now Felicity Ashbee breaks the silence in a compelling book about her mother.

The book depicts Janet Ashbee as a gifted woman of emotional warmth, strength, and unconventionality, all of which enhanced her husband's work. An accomplished writer and thinker in her own right, Janet Ashbee's life revolved around great historic issues that still resonate today: the socially conscious Arts and Crafts movement, the role of women in contemporary affairs, and embattled ethnic relationships in the Middle East -- not to mention marriage and sexual orientation, predicated upon her husband's vibrant and well-known homosexuality.

A book of rare insight and significance, Janet Ashbee sheds welcome light on the Arts and Crafts movement and on women in oft-romanticized Victorian and Edwardian British culture.

This lavish collection of copyright-free engravings by the celebrated 19th-century artist F. Knight-reproduced directly from a rare original edition-contains elaborate wall murals with trompe-l'oeil effects; scenes of hunters, flanked by mythological figures; idealized damsels in rustic settings; and numerous other florid motifs. Designs both floral (leaves, running vines, and blossoms) and animal (realistic and grotesque) appear in a variety of sizes and styles. 700 black-and-white illustrations.

William De Morgan was the principal ceramic designer and maker in the Arts and Crafts Movement. Heavily influenced by the art of the Middle East, he was active for nearly thirty years from the 1870s onwards and was never content with an existing technical process if he thought it could be improved. He is famous for his vases and decorative chargers, but it is arguably his tiles - still to be found in homes and museums around Britain and the world - that have made the greatest impact. His tiles portray iconic images of animals, ships and floral designs, blending style influences to produce designs that featured new, stylized interpretations and a whimsical character. He combined a strong design style with rich glaze colours, making blue and green, and a deep orangey red into visual trademarks. There were important commissions from royalty and industry, and his ceramics were marketed to the growing middle classes by William Morris, the founder and leading light of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The tiles of the Arts and Crafts Movement are now highly collectible, and none more so than those made at William De Morgan's Chelsea, Merton Abbey and Fulham potteries. This highly illustrated book, by acknowledged experts on De Morgan, presents the first study of the tiles to be published in over thirty-five years and features an examination of De Morgan's lustre glazes using high sensitivity X-ray analysis.