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(b Jan 25, 1930; d Lomé, Jan 4, 2010).

Togolese painter, sculptor, engraver, stained glass designer, potter and textile designer. Beginning in 1946, he received his secondary education in Dakar, where he also worked in an architecture firm. He travelled to France and received his diplôme supérieur from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. A versatile artist, Ahyi is best known for his murals and for monumental stone, marble and cement public sculptures. His work reflects the fusion of his Togolese roots, European training and an international outlook, and he counts among his influences Moore, Braque, Modigliani, Tamayo, Siqueiros and Tall. His work combines ancient and modern themes and materials, maternity being a prominent topic. The messages of his larger, public pieces operate on a broad level to appeal to the general populace, while smaller works often reflect his private engagement with challenges confronting the human condition. His compositions are both abstract and figurative and evoke the heroism and hope of the two world wars, Togo's colonial period and the struggle for independence from France, as well as the political efforts of the peoples of Vietnam, South Africa and Palestine. Ahyi has won numerous international prizes, including the prize of the city of Lyon (...

Descriptive term applied to a style of decorative arts that was widely disseminated in Europe and the USA during the 1920s and 1930s. Derived from the style made popular by the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925, the term has been used only since the late 1960s, when there was a revival of interest in the decorative arts of the early 20th century. Since then the term ‘Art Deco’ has been applied to a wide variety of works produced during the inter-war years, and even to those of the German Bauhaus. But Art Deco was essentially of French origin, and the term should, therefore, be applied only to French works and those from countries directly influenced by France.

The development of the Art Deco style, or the Style moderne as it was called at the time, closely paralleled the initiation of the 1925...

[Fr.: ‘new art’]

Decorative style of the late 19th century and the early 20th that flourished principally in Europe and the USA. Although it influenced painting and sculpture, its chief manifestations were in architecture and the decorative and graphic arts, the aspects on which this survey concentrates. It is characterized by sinuous, asymmetrical lines based on organic forms; in a broader sense it encompasses the geometrical and more abstract patterns and rhythms that were evolved as part of the general reaction to 19th-century historicism. There are wide variations in the style according to where it appeared and the materials that were employed.

Art Nouveau has been held to have had its beginnings in 1894 or 1895. A more appropriate date would be 1884, the year the progressive group Les XX was founded in Belgium, and the term was used in the periodical that supported it, Art Moderne: ‘we are believers in Art Nouveau’. The origin of the name is usually attributed to ...

Informal movement in architecture and the decorative arts that championed the unity of the arts, the experience of the individual craftsman, and the qualities of materials and construction in the work itself.

The Arts and Crafts Movement developed in the second half of the 19th century and lasted well into the 20th, drawing its support from progressive artists, architects and designers, philanthropists, amateurs, and middle-class women seeking work in the home. They set up small workshops apart from the world of industry, revived old techniques, and revered the humble household objects of pre-industrial times. The movement was strongest in the industrializing countries of northern Europe and in the USA, and it can best be understood as an unfocused reaction against industrialization. Although quixotic in its anti-industrialism, it was not unique; indeed it was only one among several late 19th-century reform movements, such as the Garden City movement, vegetarianism, and folksong revivals, that set the Romantic values of nature and folk culture against the artificiality of modern life....

(b Brussels, Aug 20, 1848; d Ixelles, Brussels, Dec 13, 1914).

Belgian architect, designer, painter and writer . He came from a family of artists: one brother, Charles Baes, was a glass painter and two others, Henri Baes and Pierre Baes, were decorative painters. Jean Baes studied decorative design at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and, from 1867 to 1871, in the firm of Charle-Albert. He subsequently trained in architecture in the studios of Emile Janlet, Wynand Janssens and Alphonse Balat. Baes devoted most of his professional career—which was cut short in 1895 by a debilitating illness—to architecture but he also worked as an interior designer, a graphic designer, an architectural draughtsman and, especially, as a watercolourist of architectural subjects. In 1872 he was a founder-member of Belgium’s Société Centrale d’Architecture and after 1874 he collaborated on its journal, L’Emulation. In 1886 he became Assistant Director of the newly established Ecole des Arts Décoratifs, Brussels, where his pupils included Paul Hankar and ...

(b Utrecht, Aug 30, 1883; d Davos, Switzerland, March 7, 1931).

Dutch painter, architect, designer and writer. He was officially registered as the son of Wilhelm Küpper and Henrietta Catharina Margadant, but he was so convinced that his mother’s second husband, Theodorus Doesburg, was his father that he took his name. Little is known of his early life, but he began painting naturalistic subjects c. 1899. In 1903 he began his military service, and around the same time he met his first wife, Agnita Feis, a Theosophist and poet. Between about 1908 and 1910, much influenced by the work of Honoré Daumier, he produced caricatures, some of which were later published in his first book De maskers af! (1916). Also during this period he painted some Impressionist-inspired landscapes and portraits in the manner of George Hendrik Breitner. Between 1914 and 1915 the influence of Kandinsky became clear in such drawings as Streetmusic I and Streetmusic II (The Hague, Rijksdienst Beeld. Kst) and other abstract works....

[New Formalism]

Architectural movement of the 1950s and 1960s. New Formalism was a reaction to the so-called “Miesian” aesthetic of corporate America during the 1950s; the architecture of the glass curtain wall. Rejecting the modernist generation’s abstract functionalist design based on volume and surface skin, Formalist architects instead sought a more articulate, representational, and expressive language of architecture. They reshaped building elements, both structural and formal, and reintroduced historic references and styles to the design of buildings. When fashionably adorned with a “new ornamentalism,” the more stylized Formalist buildings became Mannerist in expression.

In 1961, Nikolaus Pevsner recognized a “return to historicism” in architecture, which demonstrated that even pioneer modernists had become sources for revivalist interest and architectural form-making by the third quarter of the 20th century. Stimulated by New Formalism, a younger generation soon brought forth a “post-modern” language of design, sometimes disturbingly artificial and weak, sometimes “complex and contradictory,” but always seeking to be newly validated by history. Its best expressions constituted a “new classicism”; its worst evidenced by what Charles Jencks described as the “carnivalesque” in architecture....

(Ivanovich)

(b 1856; d 1914).

Russian architect based in St Petersburg. One of the first of his designs to be built was the church of the Virgin of Joy for All Sorrowing (Bogomater’ vsekh skorbyashchikh radosti) attached to the glass factory on Obukhovskaya Oborona Prospect (1894–8, destr. 1932; chapel survives), with Aleksandr Ivanov. This was a fantasy on the theme of 17th-century national religious architecture: a three-part structure (bell-tower, refectory, church), with the orthodox five domes and kokoshniki typical of the Moscow school of architecture. The church was an example of the ‘Russian style’ of the reign of Alexander III (reg 1881–94), leading to the Russo-Byzantine style of Konstantin Ton and Nikolay Yefimov. Gogen’s use of the ‘Russian style’ was highly original, as in the central market building in Nizhny Novgorod (end of the 1880s; with K. Treyman, A. Trambitsky and Nikolay Ivanov), with its fairytale decoration and use of kokoshniki, ogee arches and other elements from Old Russian architecture....

Term applied to a style of architecture and the decorative arts inspired by the Gothic architecture of medieval Europe. It has been particularly widely applied to churches but has also been used to describe castellated mansions, collegiate buildings, and houses. The Gothic Revival has also been described by many scholars as a movement, rather than style, for in the mid-19th century it was associated with and propagated by religious and political faith. From a hesitant start in the mid-18th century in England and Scotland, in the 19th century it became one of the principal styles of building throughout the world and continued in some huge projects until well into the 20th century (e.g. Episcopal Cathedral, Washington, DC, 1908–90; by G(eorge) F(rederick) Bodley and others). ‘Gothic Revival’ became the standard English term when Charles Locke Eastlake published A History of the Gothic Revival (1872). The word ‘Gothic’ had by then definitely mutated from a depreciatory epithet into the denomination of a style or period of medieval architecture. To distinguish medieval Gothic from modern Gothic, most European languages used the prefix ‘neo-’ (e.g. Dut. ...

(b Saint-Ouen, nr Amiens, Dec 5, 1911; d Orléans-La Source, Aug 1, 1993).

French painter and decorative artist. His earliest training was at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at Amiens. In 1929 he moved to Paris, where he registered to study architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, although he did not complete the course. He made copies of Old Master paintings at the Louvre and frequented the Académies Libres. At the Académie Ranson in 1935 he met Roger Bissière, who was teaching there, and became friendly with a small group of his students: Jean Le Moal (1909–96), Jean Bertholle (b 1909) and the sculptor Etienne-Martin. He exhibited for the first time with them in 1938 at the Galerie Breteau in Paris. In 1943 he went on a Trappist retreat and became a believer, an event that was to leave its mark on all his work. He executed several commissions for stained-glass windows for churches in France and abroad, in 1948–50...

(b Paris, 1931; d May 1, 2009).

French art historian of medieval art. As Professor of the University of Paris IV (Paris-Sorbonne) from 1981 until 1998, she was a leading specialist in French architecture and stained glass. She was president of the French section of Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi from 1980 to 1988. Studying at the Ecole du Louvre, she wrote initially on the sculpture of Reims, followed by a study on Notre-Dame-en-Vaux at Châlons-en-Champagne, Notre-Dame-en-Vaux. Her doctoral dissertation for the Sorbonne, under the direction of Louis Grodecki (1910–82), became an important monograph on St Remi at Reims. This was later followed by several books on Chartres Cathedral that stand out as classic studies. Aside from technical studies of the origin and development of the flying buttress, she was able to determine building sequences for a number of monuments by utilizing dendrochonological analysis of wooden beams. Her interest in Gothic architecture lead to a new series devoted to the Gothic monuments of France by Editions Picard. Her important contribution to Zodiaque publications included books on the ...

(b Boston, MA, 1842; d Boston, MA, 1910).

American architect, stained-glass designer, furniture designer, and photographer. Preston was the son of Jonathan Preston (1801–88), a successful builder in Boston. William completed a year’s study at the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge, MA (later incorporated into Harvard University), and then went to Paris where he enrolled briefly in the Atelier Douillard. He returned to Boston in 1861 to work with his father, with whom he remained in partnership until the latter’s death. William then practised independently until his own death.

Preston was a prolific architect, designing over 740 buildings in the course of a career spanning 50 years. His early work was in the French Renaissance style, as seen in his Boston Society of Natural History building (1861–4), a tripartite structure with its floor levels arranged to equate with the proportions of the base, shaft, and capital of a Classical column. It has monumental Corinthian columns and pilasters and a central pediment flanked by a balustraded parapet. He worked in a typically eclectic manner during the 1870s and became an extremely fine designer in the Queen Anne Revival style in the 1880s and early 1890s. The varied massing, stained-glass windows, terracotta, moulded brick, and carved-wood detail of the John D. Sturtevant House (...

(b Venice, June 2, 1906; d Tokyo, Nov 27, 1978).

Italian architect and designer. He graduated in architectural design at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice (1926), having previously worked for the architect Vincenzo Rinaldi. He began his teaching career at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura in Venice in 1926, holding various posts there throughout his life. His practice was in Venice from 1927 to 1962. From 1927 to 1930 he worked as an artistic consultant to the glassmakers Murano Cappellini. In these early years he concentrated on drawing and painting and experiments with glass, which resulted in windows for the Venini company of Murano, for whom he also became an artistic consultant (1933–47). The restoration of the Ca’ Fóscari (1936–7), part of the University of Venice, was the first significant work in his own right and already shows the happy acceptance of historical artefacts in design and the skill to complement it with episodic, intensely personal interventions. Scarpa was set apart from the polemic of the period by his philosophy, which ranged from occasional ironic counterpoint to diffuse over-seriousness, with a mastery of materials and an emphatic delight in discontinuity....

(b Trendelburg, May 12, 1920).

German glass painter. After military service and imprisonment by the British in Egypt, he trained in Stuttgart as a glass painter and mosaicist. Thereafter he specialized in architectural stained glass. His glass, which is usually figurative and narratorial, has been installed in more than 100 churches around the world and in secular buildings (e.g. the library extension of Pembroke College, Cambridge, ...

(b Ghent, Jan 20, 1877; d Brussels, March 17, 1935).

Belgian architect. He came from a modest background and at first worked in a number of trades and crafts; for example, he was a painter and decorator, cabinetmaker, mason and glassworker between 1896 and 1912. His artistic horizons were greatly extended through his membership of the Kunst en Kennis circle (1895–1904), whose members sought to stimulate locally a spirit similar to that of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England among building craftsmen. His interest in the botanical work of Julius Mac Léod (1857–1919), a departmental head at the Rijksuniversiteit of Ghent, also stimulated his studies of ornament in the context of Art Nouveau, the style of the Viennese Secession and Art Deco. He received no formal architectural training but established himself as an architect and built several private town houses in Ghent. From 1912 to 1920 he was artistic director of Céline Dangotte, a furnishing company in Brussels. He then embarked on his major work, the Basilique Nationale du Sacré Coeur in Koekelberg, Brussels, a national monument begun in ...

(b Brussels, Aug 31, 1847; d Brussels, Sept 11, 1917).

Belgian architect, designer, engineer, writer and politician. After graduating as an engineer at the University of Ghent in 1870, he established himself in Charleroi before settling in Ghent on his marriage in 1872. Under the influence of Jean-Baptiste-Charles-François Baron Bethune, he worked in the Belgian Gothic Revival style on architecture, furniture and wall paintings and in stained glass, gold, iron and embroidery. From 1875 to 1895 he directed the workshop for stained glass founded by Bethune. Verhaegen’s most important building is the new Beguinage (1873) of Sint Amandsberg near Ghent, which conforms to the severe Gothic Revival ideals of Bethune and anticipates some of the features of garden-city designs. His churches and conventual buildings at Ghent (Poortakker, 1874; St Macharius, 1880–82), Hekelgem (abbey, 1880; church destr.), Paris (Oeuvre des Flamands Church, c. 1875) and Rome (Everlasting Adoration, 1885–6) and châteaux at Watermaal-Bosvoorde (1880–81) and Merelbeke (...

(b London, Oct 12, 1882; d Sydney, Sept 20, 1973).

English architect and teacher, active in Australia . He was apprenticed in 1900 to C. E. Kempe, a stained-glass designer, and later that year to the architect J. S. Gibson. Wilkinson studied architecture at the Royal Academy, London, from 1902 to 1906, winning the Academy’s Silver and Gold Medals and subsequently travelling in England, France, Italy and Spain. He joined the staff of the School of Architecture, University College, London, serving as an assistant professor from 1910 to 1918. He held a commission from 1914 to 1918 in the London University Officer Training Corps, and in 1918 he was appointed as Australia’s first Professor of Architecture, at the University of Sydney. Dean of the Faculty of Architecture there from 1920 to 1947, he was a witty, erudite and influential teacher, discouraging ‘fads’ and stressing the importance of correct orientation for buildings and rooms. He designed various buildings on the university campus, the Physics Building (...

(b Melbourne, 1948).

Australian glass artist . He studied architecture at the University of Melbourne and graduated in 1972. Largely self-taught in the production of glass, he was active in the development of various kiln-working techniques applied to architectural glass. Following his first exhibition of autonomous glass panels in 1976, Wright was awarded numerous church and public commissions including a vast wall of glass (1976) for the Reception Centre at the Royal Zoological Gardens in Melbourne; a set of windows (1987) for the new Parliament House in Canberra; and a window cycle (1988) for the St James’s Anglican church in Sydney. Wright’s compositions are notable for their rhythms, juxtaposed fields of loose pattern and simple, organic imagery that often alludes to the processes of germination and growth. Many of the artist’s smaller, autonomous panels are assembled from mechanically fastened sections of glass with contrasting surface treatments and textures. A series of exhibition pieces made reference to medical X-ray images and incorporated fused motifs and figures with cloudy abstract passages of chemically treated glass....