Pickford Robert Waller Decorative Art Nouveau Design in Red

Pickford Robert Waller (1849–1930): Art Nouveau Designs

Distinguished designer and collector Pickford Robert Waller (1849–1930) was a leading member of the Aesthetic Movement and an early supporter of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). An artist of great versatility, he produced floral designs for wallpaper and fabrics, but he is best known as a prolific designer of books and bookplates: he produced book designs for authors including Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm and the poet and dramatist Laurence Binyon. The stylish decorative designs in this collection show Waller's inexhaustible imagination and his working process in developing motifs for use in ex libris.

The Aesthetic Movement championed 'art for art's sake,' emphasising the sensual qualities of art and design rather than any practical, moral or narrative purpose it might have. For a late 19th-century aesthete, though, Waller's background was unusual: he was the son of a builder. Robert John Waller ran a thriving building firm from Lyall Street in London, and when he died in 1892, Pickford Waller continued to run the business. Eventually, though, the arts came to hold more of his attention than bricks and mortar.

As well as being a practising artist himself, Pickford Waller was also an important collector and patron of the arts. In particular, he was an early supporter of James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), who he first met as a young man when he visited Whistler's studio with the artist Matthew White Ridley. Waller became an avid collector of Whistleriana, and Whistler's influence can be seen in much of his work.

Design works by Pickford Waller are held in the collections of the V&A, London and the Getty Museum, Los Angeles.