Christopher Dresser

Christopher Dresser was a designer and design theorist who was born in 1834.

He became the leading light in the Aesthetic Movement and was one of the first independent designers who was not a permanent employee of a manufacturer. He specialised in the Anglo-Japanese style, popular between 1851 and 1900. Interest in the culture and design of the far East was a characteristic of the Aesthetic Movement.

He was trained in design at the Government School of Design and took botany as his specialisation. He went on to become the Professor of Artistic Botany in the Department of Science and Art in South Kensington, London in 1855.

He designed a wide range of objects including silver and electroplate, carpets, ceramics, glass, furniture, graphics, wallpapers and printed and woven textiles. At the International Exhibition in 1862 he claimed to have ‘designed as much as any man’.

He wrote several books on design and which were later acknowledged as having set the agenda for the later Arts and Crafts Movement.

Some of his metalwork designs are still being used by the likes of Alessi who continue to produce his oil and vinegar sets with Dresser being acknowledged by them as knowing the techniques of metal design better than any other designers coming to Alessi.