Designer Biography: Charles Francis Annesley Voysey
Born: 1857 — Died: 1941

Replica CFA Voysey Clock by Christopher Vickers

Architect and designer of all forms of decorative art, one of the most original and influential in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He studied architecture under J. P. Seddon, Saxon Snell and George Devey, and in 1882 set up his own practice.

On the advice of his friend A. H. Mackmurdo, he produced wallpaper designs while waiting for architectural commissions and, from the late 1880s onwards, drew an enormous number of repeating designs for wallpapers, woven and printed textiles and carpets. He sold these to such manufacturers as A. H. Lee, J. W. & C. Ward, Alexander Morton, Morton Sundour, G. P. & J. Baker, Stead McAlpin, Thomas Wardle, Turnbull and Stockdale, Donald Brothers, Foxton's, Templeton's and Tomkinson and Adam and to the shops Liberty's, Wylie and Lochhead, and Story's.

He was a shrewd businessman, under contract to both Alexander Morton and Tomkinson's to provide a certain number of designs every year. Existing patterns reveal that he never wasted ideas, as he continually updated and transposed them from one technique to another. One pattern produced as a printed textile in the early 1890s reappeared in the late 1920s as a carpet design.

He understood textile techniques, however, and often wrote technical instructions on his designs. The development of his style can be followed quite closely in his textile designs. Of his patterns the earliest, drawn in the late 1880s, consist of traditional repeats based on historic forms, but by the mid-1890s his work was dominated by flowing patterns incorporating pastel-coloured birds, animals, hearts, flowers and trees in silhouette. These are his most characteristic and original designs. From about 1910 onwards, the motifs are dispersed and his patterns show a preference for narrative themes, many made for the nursery.

Voysey's work was well known on the Continent; although it was popular with French Art Nouveau designers, his influence was felt more dramatically by the founders of the Modern Movement.

Designs and fabrics exhibited in 1888, 1889, 1896, and 1903 included textiles and carpets made by Alexander Morton and Tomkinson and Adam and embroideries worked by Annie Reynolds-Stephens. The V&A owns an extensive collection of designs, woven and printed fabrics and machine-woven and hand-knotted carpets.

Extract © Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement by Linda Parry, published by Thames and Hudson.
© 1988 and 2005 The Board of Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Layout © 1988 and 2005 Thames & Hudson Ltd, London