Selwyn Image (17 February 1849, Bodiam, Sussex – 21 August 1930, London) was a British artist, designer, writer and poet associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement. He designed stained glass windows, furniture and embroidery, and illustrated books. He was the seventh Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford from 1910 to 1916.
Early life and education
Selwyn Image was born in Bodiam, Sussex, on 17 February 1849 to the Reverend John Image (c. 1802–1878), vicar of Bodiam and Mary Maxwell (née Hinds c. 1807–1857). He attended Marlborough College and New College, Oxford, in 1868 where he studied drawing under John Ruskin. Intending on entering the clergy and following his father as Vicar of Bodiam, Image took Holy Orders at the age of 24. He was ordained deacon in 1872 and priest the next year. He was a curate at Tottenham and later at St. Anne's, Soho. Image began studying art with A. H. Mackmurdo and Ruskin's assistant, Arthur Burgess in 1880. Image eventually abandoned the clergy in 1882.
Century Guild of Artists and Art Workers' Guild
Image was associated with the Century Guild of Artists in London, founded by prominent architect and designer A. H. Mackmurdo and Herbert Percy Horne. With Mackmurdo. He established the Guild's workshops which produced furniture, wallpaper, primarily domestic design such as furniture, stained glass, metalwork and decorative painting. He co-edited the Guild's magazine, The Hobby Horse, from 1886 to 1892. He was an active member of the Art Workers' Guild in London and became a Master of the guild in 1900.
The basis of Image's stained glass design was a "simplicity of treatment, not only in figure drawing and ornament—which closely match his contemporary graphic work, such as for the Century Guild The Hobby Horse—but also in the use of leading. In an article published in The Hobby Horse in 1890, Image expounded his principles of stained glass design, emphasizing that qualities of 'richness and brilliance of effect ... in no small measure depend upon the management of the leads'".
Image also wrote poetry, which he eventually collected in his 1894 book Poems and Carols.
Other work
Image's line-block design for the cover of the inaugural 1884 issue of the Hobby Horse, the Guild's publication, is widely known. Other celebrated works include the design of embroideries for the Royal School of Needlework and bookbindings such as that for the novel Stefania (1893).
Stained glass work
- St Mary's, Mortehoe, Devon (1888)
- St. Luke's Church, Camberwell