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‘The Art of Seeing’: Promoting Design in Education in 1930s England

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 41; Issue: 4-5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00309230500165684

1477-674X

Ian Grosvenor,

Historical Education and Society

Abstract We teach them the craft of word‐spinning. The damage is done, we should be teaching them the art of seeing. (Frank Pick) In 1937 the Council for Art and Industry sponsored a national exhibition in London of materials ‘for use in connection with teaching in elementary schools’. Local Education Authorities were encouraged to send representatives to the exhibition as a means of developing ‘a line of approach … to ensure that what is used in the elementary school may have quality of material, soundness of construction, fairness of colour and appropriateness of design, in sum, beauty’. Schools, the exhibition organizers argued, had a role to educate ‘the future consumer’ and in helping to set ‘a standard for industry in the next generation’. This article offers an account of the exhibition, detailing its development, the arguments and ideas about pedagogy that emerged in its planning and the final format of the event. This ‘story’ is then used to reflect on the Modernist project and the ‘art of seeing’ in order to illuminate the ways in which the material environment of schools shaped ideas and practice. Notes This article is based on papers given in 2003 to the EERA History of Education Network at the University of Hamburg and the “Material Cultures of Schooling Seminar” at the University of Lisbon: thanks go to all participants. Thanks also to Kate Rousmaniere, Martin Lawn, Richard Aldrich, Andy Coates, Brigitte Winsor, Sian Roberts and Rita McLean. E. Loveday to R. E. Cousens, 29 December 1936, Birmingham City Archives (BCA). R. E. Cousens to E. Loveday, 31 December1936, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. P. Innes to Lewis and Randall, Architectural and Technical Photographers, 19 November 1941; Cousens to Loveday, 10 December 1941; Loveday to Cousens 13 December 1941, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. F. Pick to Innes, 14 May 1936; Savage to Innes 18 May 1936; Innes to Pick, 23 May 1936, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. Memorandum J. MacGregor to R. E. Cousens, 18 June 1936, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. London County Council Circular, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools; Birmingham Institute for Art and Design (BIAD) Marion Richardson Archive, Ms 1115. Draft letter from Baldwin, Secretary of the Council for Art and Industry, BCA. CAI Committee for the London County Council Exhibition, Minutes of Fourth Meeting, 30 June 1936, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools. The exhibition was also publicized through a poster produced by the London Passenger Transport Board, BCA. Design in Education. Being an Exhibition of Material for use in Elementary Schools, January 1937. London, 1937: 1–2, BCA. Barman, Christian. The Man Who Built London Transport. Newton Abbott, 1979: 172. This was a view shared by Pick who wrote to Innes after the exhibition opened: “I hope you will be encouraged by our exhibition in London to carry out further experiments of the sort in conjunction with your Birmingham schools for I am only too conscious of the fact that what we have done in London is merely a start towards the improvement of the equipment and material to be used in elementary schools throughout the country, and that further experiments are to be desired before even a reasonable standard with regard to such material and equipment can be reached in all directions,” Pick to Innes, 7 January 1937, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. The Committee were originally presented by Pick with a slightly different list of organizing themes: Writing, Literature, Mathematics, Science (nature), Science (Physical or Exact Sciences), Geography, History, Arts and Crafts, Domestic Science, Music, the Nursery School and History (Social). “Suggestions Towards a Scheme for an Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools,” 24 March 1936, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. Design in Education, passim; “Suggestions Towards a Scheme for an Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools,” 24 March 1936, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. “Suggestions Towards a Scheme for an Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools,” 24 March 1936, BCA; Council for Art and Industry Committee for the London County Council Exhibition. Minutes of Third Meeting, 27 May 1936, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. Council for Art and Industry Committee for the London County Council Exhibition, Minutes of the Sixth Meeting, 30 November 1936, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. The original drawings included those for Wind in the Willows. Shepard worked for the magazine Punch. Design in Education, passim, BCA. See, for example, Grosvenor, Ian, and Martin Lawn. “’This is what we are and this is what we do’: teacher identity and teacher work in mid‐twentieth century English Education Discourse.” Pedagogy, Culture & Society 9, no. 3 (2001): 355–370. Design in Education, 16–17, BCA. Internal Education Department Memorandum from Officers attending a Committee Meeting of the Council for Art and Industry, 27 May 1936, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. “Suggestions Towards a Scheme for an Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools,” 24 March 1936. Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. Council for Art and Industry Committee for the London County Council Exhibition, Minutes of the Fifth Meeting, 20 October 1936 and Sixth Meeting 30 November 1936, Exhibition of Materials for Use in Elementary Schools, BCA. Times Educational Supplement, 23 January 1937. Birmingham Post, 7 January 1937. Binyon, Helen. Eric Ravilious. Memoir of an Artist (Cambridge, 1983): 60, 80–81; Barton, J. E. “Pictures in Schools.” Architectural Review (January 1937): 2–4. Times Educational Supplement, 7 January 1937. Board of Trade. Art and Industry [Gorell Report]. London, 1932: passim. Sparke, Penny. Introduction to Design and Culture in the Twentieth Century. London, 1986: 68. Board of Trade. Art and Industry, 15. Ibid., 44–51. Barman. The Man Who Built London Transport, 168–169. Ibid., 169. The joint planning committee was originally intended to consist of 10 members, consisting of four each from the CAI and the LCC and two from the Board of Education. The LCC nominated four officers: Tomlinson, Richardson, Lowndes and Tyson or Palfrey. An internal memorandum from the LCC gives a much narrower impression of what the exhibition was to be about: “to show every‐day things which could be used for the teaching of art.” Marion Richardson Archive, Ms 1792, Memorandum LCC, 28 February 1936, BIAD. CAI. Education for the Consumer. London, 1936: 7–9. Ibid., 10. Ibid., 11. Ibid., 29–31. Ibid., 31–33. Ibid., 38; Appendix: List of Witnesses, 39. Marion Richardson Archive Ms 1045 Pick to Richardson, 11 January 1937; 1253 Rich to Richardson, January 1937, BIAD. Sparke. Introduction to Design, 66–67. The Deutscher Werkbund was set up in Munich in 1907 with the aim of improving the design and quality of German goods. See, Campbell, J. The German Werkbund: The Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts. Princeton, NJ, 1978. Pevsner, Nicholas. “Patient Progress Three: The DIA.” In Studies in Art, Architecture and Design, Vol. 2. London, 1968: 227, 275. Barman. The Man Who Built London Transport, 168–169. Ibid., 168. Pick commissioned Holden to design 55 Broadway and many tube stations. Quoted in Barman. The Man Who Built London Transport, 269. Matless, David. Landscape and Englishness. London, 1998: 51. Pick, Frank. “Introduction” to Walter Gropius’s The New Architecture and the Bauhaus. London, 1935. Sparke. Introduction to Design, 22–23. Morris, L., and R. Radford. The Story of the Artists International Association 1933–1953. Oxford, 1983: 23–30; Heinemann, Margot. “The People’s Front and the Intellectuals.” In Britain, Fascism and the Popular Front, edited by Jim Fyrth. London, 1985: 164–165. Anscombe, Isabelle. Omega and After. Bloomsbury and the Decorative Arts. London, 1981: 133; Havinden, Michael. “Ashley Havinden 1903–1973. Life and Work.” In Havinden, M., Richard Hollis, Ann Simpson and Alice Strang. Advertising and the Artist. Ashley Havinden. Edinburgh, 2003: 14. Hollis, Richard. “Ashley Havinden. Advertising and Art.” In Havinden et al. Advertising and the Artist, 37. Times Educational Supplement, 16 January 1937. Elliott. “Gropius in England,” 120. The letter was written by Holden and W. G. Constable, the Slade Art Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge, John Maynard Keynes and C. H. Reilly, formerly Professor of Architecture at the University of Liverpool. Fry, Maxwell. Autobiographical Sketches. London, 1975: 140–142. Pevsner. “Patient Progress Three: The DIA,” 235. Fry. Autobiographical Sketches, 133. Ibid., 146. Binyon. Eric Ravilious, 57. Fry. Autobiographical Sketches, 137–138. Elliott, David. “Gropius in England: A Documentation 1934–1937.” In A Different World. Émigré Architects in Britain 1928–1958, edited by Charlotte Benton. London, 1995: 108, 115; Foster, Andy. “A Pevsner city guide to Birmingham.” In West Midlands Yearbook 2003, Royal Institute of British Architects. Birmingham, 2003: 13. The Birmingham architect Sargent Florence was a friend of Gropius and in the 1930s employed Nicholas Pevsner. Quoted in Rée, Harry. Educator Extraordinary. The Life and Achievement of Henry Morris. London: Peter Owen, 1985: 70–71. Ibid., 66. Rée. Educator Extraordinary, 6, 64. Pevsner, Nicholas. Cambridgeshire. Harmondsworth, 1954, second edition 1970: 412–413. Herbert Read held similar views, writing “We turn, then, to the practical question: is it possible, not merely to conceive, but to build and introduce into the existing educational system, schools which provide the essentials of an educative environment? The answer is yes: it has been in at least one instance, and a model perhaps not perfect in every detail, but practical, functional and beautiful does exist on English Soil … the Village College at Impington …,” Education Through Art. London, 1956: 292–293. Stillman and Cleary particularly drew attention to the library at the college as “an example of good modern design.” “The bookcases are set well apart and are raised above the floor for convenience of access and to allow for ease of cleaning. Painted white, they lighten the effect in the room and make full play with the colours provided by the books. The simplicity of the room gives it an air of rest and quiet.” Stillman C. G., and R. C. Cleary. The Modern School. London, 1949: 114. Elliott. “Gropius in England,” 121. Ibid., 112, 227, note 29. Fry. Art in the Machine Age, passim; Havinden. “Ashley Havinden,” 14; Simpson, Ann. “Ashley Havinden. Architecture and Interiors.” In Havinden, Advertising and the Artist, 67; Senter, T. “Moholy‐Nagy’s English Photography.” Burlington Magazine no. 944 (1981): 659. Fry. Autobiographical Sketches, 156. Ibid., 140–142, 145, 154–155. Anscombe. Omega and After, 75–76. Richardson, Marion. Art and the Child. London, 1948: 11–12, 30. Roger Fry is not known to be related to Maxwell Fry. Fry, Roger. “Children’s Drawings.” Burlington Magazine XL (January 1924): 35–41. Roger Fry to Pamela Fry, 7 January 1917. In Letters of Roger Fry, edited by D. Sutton, vol. 2. London, 1972: 395. Clark, Sir Kenneth. “Introduction.” In Richardson. Art and the Child, 7. Green, Christopher. “Expanding the Canon. Roger Fry’s Evaluations of the ‘Civilised’ and the ‘Savage’.” In Art Made Modern. Roger Fry’s Vision of Art, edited by C. Green. London, 1999: 129; Jameson, Kenneth. Pre‐School and Infant Art. London, 1968: 114; Marion Richardson Archive. Producing a Biographical and Critical Monograph based on the Marion Richardson Archive: Crosscurrents (unpublished report 1977), 3, BIAD. Anscombe. Omega and After, passim. Richardson. Art and the Child, 35. Crosscurrents, 13–15. Bulley collaborated with the psychologist Cyril Burt on a design taste test for the BBC in 1933; see Holdsworth, Bruce. “English Art Education between the Wars.” Journal of Art and Design Education 3, no. 2 (1984): 169. Holdsworth. “Art Education between the Wars,” 161, 170. Margery Fry and Richardson grew closer over time. Fry wrote to Richardson: “How nice it is for me who has no children to have something so near a very nice daughter as you are.” Marion Richardson Archive. Ms 255 Fry to Richardson, 22 January 1933, BIAD. Anscombe. Omega and After, 100–101; Roger Fry to Vanessa Bell, 22 February 1919 in Sutton. Letters of Roger Fry, 405–406. Holdsworth. “Art Education between the Wars,” 175. Green. “Expanding the Canon,” 129; Richardson. Art and the Child, 42. Marion Richardson Archive Ms 3153, BIAD. Jameson. Pre‐School and Infant Art, 114; Wilson, F. M. In the Margins of Chaos. London, 1944: 124–128. Wilson. In the Margins of Chaos, 126; Wilson, Francesca. Rebel Daughter of a Country House. The Life of Eglantyre Jebb. London, 1967: 201–202. Richardson. Art and the Child, 51–52. Newnham College Roll Letter. Cambridge, 1982: 62; Bachtin, Nicholas. Lectures and Essays. Birmingham, 1963: 10–12. Marion Richardson Archive Ms 112 Cyril Burt to Marion Richardson, 16 April 1930: Ms 113, Burt to Richardson, 8 May 1930, BIAD. Fry, Roger. “Children’s Drawings at the County Hall.” The New Statesman and Nation (24 June 1933): 844–845. Holdsworth. “Art Education between the Wars,” 168. R. R. Tomlinson continued to promote children’s art and produced Children as Artists. London, 1944. He later became involved in School Prints, a similar venture to that pioneered by Contemporary Lithographs (see above) and organized by Brenda Rawnsley and Herbert Read. The Contemporary Lithographs project had been abandoned due to paper shortages with the advent of war. Marion Richardson Archive. Ms 1279, Sir Kenneth Clark to Richardson, 27 February 1935, BIAD. Yorke, Malcolm. Eric Gill. Man of Flesh and Spirit (1981): 257. See Davis, Tom. “The acquisition of handwriting in the UK” documents the influence of Marion Richardson’s “Round hand system” in primary schools, the system developed in 1935 recommended joining most but not all letters.” Available from: http:www.bham.ac.uk/english/bibliography/ handwriting/newwebpages/acquisition.html; INTERNET (accessed 1 September 2003). Marion Richardson Archive Ms 1459 Poster for The International Congress on Art Education, Paris, 30 July–5 August 1937; Ms 1453, 1458, 1459, BIAD. Simpson. “Ashley Havinden. Architecture and Interiors,” 74. Marion Richardson Archive Ms 461 Pick to Richardson, 25 November 1937, BIAD. Richardson. Art and the Child, 79. Fry. Autobiographical Sketches, 147. J. Abbott Miller, “Elementary School.” In The ABC’s of … The Bauhaus and Design Theory, edited by E. Lupton and J. Abbot Miller. London, 1993: 4–5, 20. Mies van der Rohe (1954) quoted in Wingler, H. Bauhaus – Weimar Dessau Berlin Chicago. Cambridge, MA, 1969: 17. Gropius, Walter. “Art Education and the State.” In Circle, edited by J. L. Martin, Ben Nicholson and N. Gatson. London, 1937: 238. Moss, John. “School Furniture and Apparatus.” In Robson. School Architecture, 360. Robson, E. R. School Architecture. London, 1874: 7. Matless. Landscape and Englishness, 260–263. Read. Education through Art, 67–68; Maclure, Stuart. One Hundred Years of London Education. London: Allen Lane, 1970: 37, 57; Ballard, P. B. “What London Children like to draw.” Journal of Experimental Pedagogy (1911–12): 185–197; Ballard, P. B. “The Elementary Schools of London.” Appendix 1 of LCC Annual Report (1925): 38; Topham Vinall, J. W. School Drawing and Colour Work. London: Gresham, n.d.: 118–119; Marion Richardson Archive. Ms 1001, Ballard to Richardson, 30 August 1946, BIAD. Ballard was the only individual listed in the acknowledgements of Richardson’s autobiography. In a review of her “Art and the Child,” he described Richardson as a “dominant figure in the educational world” and “the English Cizek.” News clippings. The Teachers World, 8 December 1948, BIAD. Thanks to Martin Lawn for information about Ballard and intelligence testing. See, Silver, Harold. “Britain’s Educational Worlds.” In Education, Change and the Policy Process. Lewes, 1990: 147–165; and Hofstetter, Rita and Bernard Schneuwly, eds. “The Role of Congresses and Institutes in the Emergence of the Educational Sciences.” Paedagogica Historica XL, no. 5/6 (2004), special issue. Richardson. Art and the Child, 77. Selleck, Richard. Frank Tate. A Biography. Melbourne, 1982: 164–167. Thanks to Martin Lawn for this reference. For exhibitions attached to national meetings, see, for example, Education (15 January 1937): 95–97; and for international congresses, see, for example, League of the Empire. Official Report of the Federal Conference on Education, Caxton Hall, Westminster. London, 1907). See Lawn, Martin and Ian Grosvenor, eds. Materialities of Schooling. London, 2005. For example: “There is still much to be done in designing and adjusting school furniture to meet the needs of children. Although much furniture is now designed so that it can be moved and stacked, the underlying idea seems to be that all the children in a class must be able to write simultaneously, and that for this purpose desks equal in number to the children in the class are necessary. It may be that this idea should be modified.” Ministry of Education. Physical Education in the Primary School Part One. Moving and Growing. London, 1952: 79–80; Blishen, Edward. The School That I’d Like. London, 1969: passim; Burke, Catherine, and Ian Grosvenor. The School I’d Like. London, 2003: passim. Marion Richardson Archive. Ms 255, Fry to Richardson, 22 July 1933, BIAD; Wilson. In the Margins of Chaos, 174–177; Fyrth, Jim. The Signal Was Spain. The Aid Spain Movement in Britain 1936–39. London, 1986: 163–173; Coates, Andrew. “Observation and Drawing: a Justification for their Inclusion in the Primary School Curriculum.” Journal of Art and Design Education 3, no. 2 (1984): 194–195. Square brackets identify an area of responsibility in the exhibition.