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Émile Gallé and René Lalique Study Day

30 May 2024


Worsall Village Hall

3 Church Lane

Yarm

TS15 9QB


10.30 – 3.30 Lunch included. £45


To book  please contact Lillian Briggs on 0191 5870652 or email lillianbriggs@btinternet.com

Payment can be by cheque, BACS or card.


Cheques (made payable to North Yorks & South Durham DFAS) can be sent to:

Lillian Briggs, 22, Lumley Drive, Peterlee SR8 1NL


BACS payments: SD&NYDFAS, Acc. No. 00017726, Sort Code: 40-52-40 reference: STUDY DAY


Cash/Card payment: can also be made at the lectures on 18 March/22 April/20 May


Please remember to let Lillian know when you have paid by BACS


Please confirm payment of your booking as soon as possible



Morning Session 

Émile Gallé and L’Ecole de Nancy


During the Art Nouveau era (1890-1914) glass was transformed into a breath-taking art form. Born in 1846 in Nancy, capital of Alsace-Lorraine, Émile Gallé  transformed his family’s business into one of the world’s leading art manufactories. 


In addition to glass, Gallé produced ceramics and furniture offering customers a ‘tout ensemble’ or total style.  He was first and foremost a designer and chemist, constantly perfecting new techniques. 




First there was enamelling on clear glass, then hand-carved and acid etched cameo glass and his ultimate technique ‘glass marquetry’ perfected for Paris 1900. 


In 1901 Gallé spearheaded the foundation of l’École de Nancy, or the School of Nancy, a confederation of manufacturers, which numbered furniture designer Louis Marjorelle and the Daum brothers famed for their art glass.


They were inspired by the success of Liberty of Regent Street and Morris & Co., believing the alliance of art and industry would rejuvenate the local economy.  Nancy was transformed into a Ville des Arts as houses, banks, shops, and cafés, many of which still survive, sprang up.   Although Art Nouveau declined in many other centres during the opening years of the new century, in Nancy it thrived up to the First World War and aspects of the movement can still be traced in the post-war years. Gallé’s firm closed in 1936, a victim of the Depression, but Daum still thrives.



Afternoon Session: René Lalique: from Art Nouveau jewellery to Art Deco glass


Although Lalique is best known for his Art Deco glass of the inter-war years, his career began in the early 1890s as the designer of the finest Art Nouveau jewellery.  Patronised by Sarah Bernhardt, Lalique created stunning pieces of jewellery from gold, horn, glass and enamel.  He preferred opals and aquamarines to flashy diamonds and his jewels were about design and craftsmanship rather than vulgar ostentation.  As his fame spread his style was copied and debased until Lalique felt that he had exhausted the potential of jewellery. 



At that very moment, around1907, the perfumer Coty asked Lalique to design some labels for his scent bottles, but Lalique went one better and designed a new stopper - he had created the first customised perfume bottle.  The public loved the concept, and a craze began.  Soon Lalique was designing for other famous perfumiers: Worth, D’Orsay and Roger et Gallet.   After the war Lalique extended production into decorative vases, tableware, lamps, and even architectural glass creating the famous ‘Glass church’, St Matthew’s, Jersey.  All his glass was press moulded but of the highest quality.   His company survived the Depression with car mascots and paperweights.  Lalique died in 1945 but the company he founded is now a leading luxury brand.



SCOTT ANDERSON MA, PHD, Cert. Arch., Cert. Educ., ASFAV, FNAVA


Scott has spent most of his life working in Universities or in the commercial world of art and antiques. For ten years he worked as a professional archaeologist in the Department of Archaeology at Leicester University before his interests shifted to the world of art, antiques and auctioneering.


In 1994 he joined the team at Southampton Solent University as a Lecturer in Fine Arts Valuation, then, the only BA(Hons) degree course of its kind to look at the commercial art world.  He also has a particular interest in architecture and in recent years has taught courses on the history and theory of interior design. Now, having retired from his position as a Senior Lecturer in Art and Design, at Solent University, he concentrates on lecturing, research, film making and publication.  Scott has written extensively, in learned journals and popular magazines, on both ancient and 19th-century ceramics, and Victorian and Edwardian art and design.


Scott has lectured to a variety of University Extra-mural departments, Arts Society groups and local antiques societies and hosted numerous cultural and heritage tours in the UK and abroad. In 2003 he was made an Honorary Associate of the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers and in 2005 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the National Association of Valuers and Auctioneers. He also worked for several years as a consultant valuer for the BBC television programme Flog It.

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