Charles Voysey

Charles Voysey was one of the Arts and Craft movement's most successful architects, as well as producing some of its most striking designs for furniture and other interior elements, including wallpaper and textiles. Elegant and quietly expressive, Voysey's work demonstrated the designer's strong belief in 'less is more'; his drawings for flat-surface design demonstrate the same restraint and interest in clear space that is evident in his furniture and other objects. Although Voysey wouldn't have accepted it himself – as a British practitioner of Arts and Crafts design, he would have had little enthusiasm for such an exuberant, 'European' style – it is generally agreed that his dramatic large-scale florals laid the foundations for the development of Art Nouveau, particularly the work of Czech painter and decorative artist Alphonse Mucha.