A suite of furniture designed by the world-famous Glasgow-born architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh has returned ‘home’ to Bath 100 years after it first arrived in the city.
Part of the scaled down Bath bedroom now recreated at the Museum of Bath at Work.
A sketch made in 1917 – by Charles Rennie Mackintosh – of Sidney Horstmann’s proposed bedroom design.
Designed for the family home of Bath-based businessman and engineer Sidney Horstmann, the bedroom suite, which arrived in the city in 1917, has been recreated – in part – in the Museum of Bath at Work in an exhibition ‘ A Bedroom in Bath: C R Mackintosh and Sidney Horstmann’ that will run untilf October 2017.
The bedroom suite was designed especially for Sidney Horstmann’s home on the Upper Bristol Road in 1917 and featured a unique decorative scheme of painted friezes around the walls.
L to R Dr Trevor Turpin – Chairman of Directors at the Museum of Bath at Work and Tim Dunmore. Mr Dunmore is Sidney Horstmann’s grandson so he has direct memories of the room and the furniture. Quite how the fairly delicate furniture stood up to a junior Mr Dunmore prancing about on it is testament to Mackintosh furniture being stronger than it looks!Bath Spa University senior lecturer – and former graphic artist – Paul Minott is tasked with recreating a frieze of coloured triangles. He has something like 500 to stencil on. A technique Charles Renne Mackintosh would have used in the original Bath bedroom.
The room has been recreated at the Museum of Bath at Work and allows, in a scaled – down space, for the furniture to be displayed with the decoration which has been copied from Mackintosh’s original drawings.
The bedroom at Onega Lodge.
The furniture is being borrowed from the Victoria and Albert Museum and the decoration completed with assistance from Bath Spa University.
L to R . The Cive Chairman of B&NES, Cllr Karen Walker and Dr Nigel Bamforth who is the Senior Furniture Conservator of the Victoria and Albert Museum. According to Stuart Burroughs – Curator of The Museum of Bath @ Work – ‘ Dr Bamforth had come to install the furniture and made a remark regarding something I hadn’t realised. That this is the first time a collection of furniture from the V & A has been displayed – outside the V & A – together and in a realistic context, that is to say the original decorative scheme. He seemed genuinely excited by the whole project which, given that we were a little nervous before he arrived, made everyone feel better’.
Bath Newseum called in – before the opening – to see Dr Trevor Turpin, Chairman of the Museum Board, who is curating the exhibition.
Just to remind you. The exhibition runs through to October. Check out www.bath-at-work.org.uk/ for more information.
Invited guests at the opening.
The exhibition is being sponsored by Horstmann Controls Ltd – who are now based in Bristol.
Freelance Journalist, broadcaster, columnist and local historian. Director of Bath Newseum. Married and lives in Bath.
Interested in local history, architecture and visual display in museums and urban spaces.
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