Rowley Gallery Intarsia wood panel

‘The Factory’

Designed by Sir Frank Brangwyn RA

Executed by AJ Rowley

Rowley Gallery

Circa 1915

Height 130cm Width 189cm

SOLD

The panel was exhibited by The Rowley Gallery in 1923 at The Cheltenham Municipal Art Gallery. It was listed in the catalogue as No 49 and priced at £52.10.00

Brangwyn’s fame was generally based on his genius as an artist rather than as a designer, but his decorative work included designs for carpets, pottery, light fittings, textiles, jewellery and furniture.

The working relationship between Brangwyn and Rowley was long standing and can certainly be traced back to 1916 when the article regarding this panel appeared in ’The Studio Yearbook’. They collaborated many times over the years and together together they worked on an important commission to decorate the first-class dining room of the luxury liner “Empress of Britain” in 1931.

In 1933 Brangwyn designed the frieze panels for the Rowley Gallery’s new ‘modernist’ shop in Kensington Church Street. The three life-sized carved wooden panels depicted carpenters at work. Sadly the premises were destroyed by an incendiary bomb in 1941, and although the panels were saved, they were later destroyed in a fire at the barn where they were being stored.

Sir Frank Brangwyn was the most famous artist working with Albert James Rowley and certainly the panels he designed were the most expensive. The “Hollyhocks” screen is in the William Morris Gallery collection in Walthamstow.

The panel has had some old restoration to the bottom right hand side as there are 3 figures along the riverbank instead of 6 as in the original.