Nelson Dawson
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Nelson Ethelred Dawson (1859 - 1941) was a British artist and member of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Dawson was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire and educated at Stamford School. He lived in London, where he operated his workshop first from Chelsea and in due course from the rear of his townhouse in Chiswick. He exhibited his art throughout England including at the Royal Academy and was elected an Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Engravers.
As a potter, watercolour painter, jeweller, silversmith, metalworker, etcher, print-maker and writer on artistic subjects, his reputation has probably suffered because he spread his talents too thinly. Nevertheless, both the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum hold collections of his work and papers, and together with his wife, Edith (née Robinson), he was one of the key figures in the jewellery of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Together, they revived the Renaissance practice of enamelling in their jewellery. Edith learned enamelling from her husband who had been taught by Alexander Fisher, a master enameller who in turn had learned his craft in France.
Among many commissions, they designed the mallet and trowel used by Queen Victoria to lay the foundation stone of the V & A Museum in 1899 and a casket presented to Woodrow Wilson when he visited England in 1919[1].
In 1901, Dawson founded The Artificers' Guild from his workshop in Chiswick but it was acquired by Montague Fordham (one time director of the Birmingham Guild and School of Handicrafts) in 1903.
He is noted for his maritime scenes.
Dawson left many of his pictures to Stamford School but although a number of watercolours still decorate the walls of the school, not all of these were stored or displayed properly and some were even painted over and used by pupils as blank canvases.[1]
A retrospective of his work at Stamford Museum closed on 26 January 2008.
[edit] Further reading
- Nelson and Edith Dawson, silversmiths and decorative artists: Victoria & Albert Museum papers, 1822-1939.
AAD/1987/7, AAD/1988/8, AAD/1991/9, AAD/1992/4
[edit] References
- ^ Douglas, W. Some Happenings. Unpublished manuscript. (Available from the Stamford School Archive).
