
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo
Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo was born in London, 1851. He trained to be an architect and for a short time was a student of the naturalist John Ruskin. Mackmurdo founded the Century Guild in 1882 along with Herbert Horne and designed furniture, textiles and wallpaper. Through these designs within the guild he strongly influenced the Arts and Crafts Movement. He was also a pioneer of the Modern Style and in turn the global Art Nouveau movement. He had two motifs he would continually use: twisted curving foliage and thin square columns without capitals. In 1899 he designed a silk damask called Bexley for Warner & Sons which incorporated the monogram of the Century Guild and was probably designed some years before being put into production. He died in 1942