Home Help: 26 April
The design world has gone dog-crazy this spring – and man’s best friend is being depicted in all sorts of imaginative new ways.
The interior designer of the moment, Abigail Ahern, for example, has commissioned a schnauzer and Scottie made from moss – and a rope, lifesize shaggy sheepdog for her Islington shop. Her china dogs, meanwhile, are making themselves useful as lamp bases, and her poodles and greyhounds will certainly brighten a room.
Kit Kemp, the designer and co-owner of Firmdale Hotels, has also found that the muchproduced Staffordshire redand- white spaniels are the perfect size for conversion into table lamps. In her hotel, the Knightsbridge, twodimensional knitted dogs are also appliquéd on to cushions.
The artist, Peter Clark, who is represented by the London gallery Rebecca Hossack, doesn’t paint dogs in watercolour or oil but makes images of them in collage. Old maps, love letters, stamps, playing cards, match boxes, rosettes, buttons and labels, are the building blocks of his work. He is about to publish a book, Paperwork (Black Dog Books, £16.95), showing his pugs, greyhounds and spaniels among others. The fashion designer Paul Smith is a collector of his originals.
Another artist, Charlotte Cory, gives a nod to the predilection of the Victorians for dressing up stuffed animals in human clothes, by finding old studio portraits from the era and superimposing animal heads on to the bodies of the subjects. All are gathered in a book, You Animal, You! (Black Dog Books, £19.95).
To have one’s own dog commemorated for future generations is very appealing. Send David Cleverly of Haytown Pottery an email or a photograph and he will make a china model of any breed of dog on a plinth, complete with their name or dedication.
From left to right
The interior designer of the moment, Abigail Ahern, for example, has commissioned a schnauzer and Scottie made from moss – and a rope, lifesize shaggy sheepdog for her Islington shop. Her china dogs, meanwhile, are making themselves useful as lamp bases, and her poodles and greyhounds will certainly brighten a room.
Kit Kemp, the designer and co-owner of Firmdale Hotels, has also found that the muchproduced Staffordshire redand- white spaniels are the perfect size for conversion into table lamps. In her hotel, the Knightsbridge, twodimensional knitted dogs are also appliquéd on to cushions.
The artist, Peter Clark, who is represented by the London gallery Rebecca Hossack, doesn’t paint dogs in watercolour or oil but makes images of them in collage. Old maps, love letters, stamps, playing cards, match boxes, rosettes, buttons and labels, are the building blocks of his work. He is about to publish a book, Paperwork (Black Dog Books, £16.95), showing his pugs, greyhounds and spaniels among others. The fashion designer Paul Smith is a collector of his originals.
Another artist, Charlotte Cory, gives a nod to the predilection of the Victorians for dressing up stuffed animals in human clothes, by finding old studio portraits from the era and superimposing animal heads on to the bodies of the subjects. All are gathered in a book, You Animal, You! (Black Dog Books, £19.95).
To have one’s own dog commemorated for future generations is very appealing. Send David Cleverly of Haytown Pottery an email or a photograph and he will make a china model of any breed of dog on a plinth, complete with their name or dedication.
From left to right
- ‘Doggie bag’ collages by Peter Clark at Kit Kemp’s Knightsbridge hotel 5 Poodle lamp, £195, by Abigail Ahern: 020-7354 8181, www.atelierabigailahern.com
- Handmade ceramic figures, prices from £60, by David Cleverly: 01409-261476, www.ceramicdogs.com
- Poodle lamp, £195, by Abigail Ahern: 020-7354 8181, www.atelierabigailahern.com
- MAIN IMAGE ABOVE Sweet Darling Rose paper collage, £8,400, by Peter Clark at the Rebecca Hossack gallery: 020-7255 2828, www.rhg.co.uk