The Rise and Rise of Interior Decoration: England, France and America in the Twentieth Century and beyond.

Friday 20th October 2017 - Stephen Calloway

Morning Session 1 - From ‘Upholders’ to Interior Decorators: tradition, modernity and the rise of a new profession.

Morning session 2 - A Golden Age, 1930s-1950s: John Fowler and his friends and rivals.

[Lunch]

Afternoon Session 1 - Modern Times: the ever-faster swing of the pendulum of taste. The Sixties, ‘The Country House Look’, Minimalism and some other trends.

Afternoon Session 2 - Tour of the house

Stephen Calloway is an art historian, curator and writer. From 1974-2013 he was a curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum, specialising in the fine and decorative arts of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century, with particular interest in the history of taste, collecting and interior decoration. 

He has curated many exhibitions at the V&A and elsewhere, including Aubrey Beardsley, the  centenary show in 1998, Rex Whistler: The Triumph of Fancy (Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, 2006) and The Cult of Beauty, the V&A’s major exhibition on the Aesthetic Movement (2011). 

In addition to exhibition projects, he divides his time between writing, lecturing and broadcasting, and is also been called upon as a consultant for period films and the arrangement of real interiors.  His books include Twentieth Century Decoration; The Elements of Style;  Baroque, Baroque: The Culture of Excess and Traditional Style: How to Recreate the Traditional Period Home.  In addition to scholarly articles, he also writes regularly for magazines including The World of Interiors and House and Garden.