Soumak

Édouard Bénédictus (1878-1930) was a French designer, painter and chemist, and one of the most recognisable figures of floral Art Deco. Born in Paris, he began in the Art Nouveau years and moved with the change of taste after 1912, becoming known for the pattern portfolios Variations (1923) and Nouvelles variations (1928), produced by the stencil technique known as pochoir and built on bold, flat blocks of colour.

Paul Haesaerts (1901-1974) was a Belgian art critic, architect, film-maker and designer, born at Boom and active in Brussels. He studied painting, architecture, law and philosophy, and worked across all of them: among his occupations he is recorded as a carpet designer, and Art Deco carpets to his design date from the 1920s and 1930s.

Ashley Havinden (1903 – 1973)

Jules Leleu (1883-1961) was a French furniture designer, decorator and sculptor, and one of the defining figures of Art Deco. Born in Boulogne-sur-Mer into a family of artisans and decorators, he took over his father's decorative painting business with his brother Marcel, and turned the firm - Maison Leleu, in the family since the eighteenth century - towards furniture after the First World War.

René Joubert (1878-1931) was a French architect and cabinetmaker, and the founder of Décoration Intérieure Moderne. He established DIM in 1918 with the stage designer Georges Mouveau, and from 1924 worked with Philippe Petit, whose partnership with Joubert produced the firm's best known interiors.

Jean Lurçat (1892-1966)

A French artist born in Bruyères, France 1892, Jean Lurçat has been hailed as the father of modern tapestry, revitalizing their popularity during the twentieth century. He spend his academic years at the Académie Colarossi, where he studied along pupils such as Paul Cezanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri Matisse. Much of his early work drew heavily from avant-garde and Cubist direction.

The fame of the finely-crafted decorative rugs from the city of Tabriz can be traced back to at least the 16th century when the Safavid court commissioned these extraordinary carpets for use in palaces, holy sites, and tombs. The famed Ardebil Carpet, long housed in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, is considered the finest extant example of 16th century Tabriz carpet weaving.

A.W.N. Pugin (1812-1852) was the architect and designer who, more than anyone, gave the Gothic Revival its principles. Trained by his father, the architectural draughtsman Augustus Charles Pugin, he was designing professionally by fifteen, when he was commissioned to produce a Gothic chalice for George IV.