The Festival of Britain

Do you remember the Festival of Britain? Spiky chairs and concrete planters? Why was it held when money was nonexistent and materials impossible to source? We will revisit those exciting post war years when the future was bright and technology was to change the world in so many ways for so many of us.

Matthew Denny

Matthew Denny has worked with the fine and decorative arts all his life. He has worked as an auctioneer and valuer with a number of firms. He is currently a senior valuer and head of department at Lawrences in Crewkerne, one of the countries leading provincial auctioneers. Matthew has also worked in Higher Education as Course Leader and a Senior Lecturer on the no longer extant Fine Arts Valuation Degree at Southampton Solent University. He taught on a range of subjects including furniture, silver art and design history. He completed a PhD in the Arts and Crafts Movement and has written on design history for a number of publications. He has current research interests in ‘Great Exhibitions’, ‘Post War Design and Architecture’ and ‘The Crafts in Post War Britain’. 

Matthew loves to give talks to all sorts of different groups on the fine and decorative arts, his interests in the various Great Exhibitions since 1851 and Post War architecture and design are amongst his current favourite talks which have been well received by a number of groups over recent months.