Page 59 - Constructing Craft
P. 59
Anton Seuffert Parquetry. Photo: The Peter Herbert Collection and New Zealand
Historical Auction.
Another high point in furniture making in New Zealand was inspired by the Arts and
Crafts Movement. The most prominent exponent of this movement in the early
twentieth century was the architect, James Chapman-Taylor, who was also a
noted furniture designer. His furniture was often specifically designed for the houses
he built. Rex, his son, also became a furniture designer and maker and followed his
father’s Arts and Crafts inspired philosophy. In 1968, while Rex Chapman-Taylor
was making furniture in his workshop at Trentham, near Wellington, Peter Smeele,
who had emigrated to New Zealand from Holland in 1952, opened The Brown’s Mill
Market, a craft cooperative, in Auckland.
Constructing Craft
