Crafts Council building, Pentonville Road

The Crafts Council is the national development agency for contemporary craft in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

, and is funded by

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

History

The Crafts Advisory Committee was formed in 1971 to advise the Minister for the Arts,

David Eccles, 1st Viscount Eccles David McAdam Eccles, 1st Viscount Eccles (18 September 1904 – 24 February 1999), was an English Conservative politician. Education and early career Eccles was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, where he obtained a sec ...

, ‘on the needs of the artist craftsman and to promote a nation-wide interest and improvement in their products’. Its first meeting was held on 6 October 1971 at the Council of Industrial Design (later the

Design Council The Design Council, formerly the Council of Industrial Design, is a United Kingdom charity incorporated by Royal Charter. Its stated mission is "to champion great design that improves lives and makes things better". It was instrumental in the prom ...

). It was later chaired by Sir Paul Sinker. In 1973, the Committee purchased Waterloo Place, London. It began publishing the journal ''Crafts''. It also held its first exhibition, ''The Craftsman's Art'' (1973) at the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, accompanied by publication of the exhibition catalog of the same name. In 1974, it launched the Crafts Advisory Committee Index, an information service for and about craftspeople. In April 1979 the Crafts Advisory Committee was renamed the Crafts Council. In 1982, the organisation was granted a

Royal Charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...

and became independent of the Design Council. In 1991, the Crafts Council moved to 44a

Pentonville Road Pentonville Road is a road in Central London that runs west to east from Kings Cross to City Road at The Angel, Islington. The road is part of the London Inner Ring Road and part of the boundary of the London congestion charge zone. The roa ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, where premises included a reference library, a shop, a café, an education workshop and a gallery space. In 1999 it became a funded organisation of the Arts Council of Great Britain (later the

Arts Council of England The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

). In 2006, the Crafts Council decreased its on-site activity and closed the gallery, shop, education workshop and café in order for the Crafts Council to increase its regional activity via partnership working. In 2011, its 40th anniversary year, over 400,000 visitors saw its five temporary exhibitions, 27,000 people attended its craft fairs, and over 7,000 children and young people participated in its nationwide initiatives.

Funding

The Crafts Council is supported by

. The Crafts Council is also supported by a number of trusts and foundations and private patrons who support touring exhibitions, professional development schemes and participation and learning programmes. All meet the aims and objectives of charitable organisations supporting the arts.

People

The Crafts Council is made up of a number of specialist teams, reflecting the various aspects of its work, and is overseen by a Senior Management Team, and ultimately a board of Trustees.

References

External links

Crafts Council website
{{Authority control Crafts organizations Cultural organisations based in the United Kingdom Arts in the United Kingdom 1971 establishments in the United Kingdom

History

Funding

People

Archives

References

External links