Aumonier, William & Son (1870-1923)
Aumonier, William & Son
1 New Inn Yard, Tottenham Court Road, London; architectural sculptors in wood and stone (fl.1870-1923)
William Aumonier snr. (b. 1839 - d. 1914) and was listed in the London Post Office Directory (1882, 1891 & 1902) as a modeller and wood carver. Charles Henry Bessant, cabinet maker & carver of the same area north of Oxford Street, was recorded, with William jnr. (b. 1869), as executors of the will of William snr. [probate notice 1914].
Arthur Simpson was a carver who worked for Aumonier c.1875-79. Both he and the designer C. F. A. Voysey later commissioned Aumonier & Son to provide carvings. Aumonier was the maker of a model of a street lamp, c.1897 ((illustrated in Livingstone, Donnelly & Parry (2016), pl. 365).
Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society, London. Both William Aumonier and his son, William jnr. (b. 1869) were regular exhibitors, 1888-1906. These exhibits included models for Anaglypta Co. and William de Morgan, and various plaster carvings. The wood carvings and furniture exhibits were:
1888 - cat. nos. 481 (oak panel Gothic style), 484 (mirror, oak, carved inlaid), 485 (oak carving Italian Renaissance style)
1890 - 415 (litany desk for Grantham Church designed by Reginald T. Blomfield, carving by Aumonier snr. & jnr.)
1899 - 466 (hall seat in carved oak)
1903 - 592 (specimens of marquetry and solid inlay)
One of William snr.'s daughers, Louisa (Annie-Louise) designed a wallpaper, Lecco, for William Woollams & Co., exhibited in the 1888 Exhibition (exhibit no. 58). Miss E. Ammonier, probably Edith, another of William senior's daughters, is recorded as one of the artists of an altar displayed in the 1916 exhibition (exhibit no. 582).
William Aumonier jnr. was an active member of the Art Workers’ Guild. He carved the four ‘Angels Singing Grace’ for a table designed by Voysey, commissioned in 1923. Each figure cost £4 5s, thus the combined cost for the angels constituted nearly half of the total amount of table, £45 16s, which was probably made by F. C. Nielsen (illustrated in Livingstone, Donnelly & Parry (2016), pl. 207).
Reproductions of some of the archaeological finds in the Tutankhumun tomb discovered by Howard Carter in 1922, were made in William Aumonier's workshop and exhibited at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition, Wembley. Carter tried to prevent their display, but failed. After the exhibition closed, Aumonier sold the reproductions to a business man in Hull, Albert Reckitt. He donated them to Hull in 1936 and in 1972 the city's Wilberforce Museum used them to stage its own Tutankhumun exhibition, the year of the blockbuster show at the British Museum.
Sources: Allwood, ‘George Faulkner Armitage 1849-1937’, Furniture History (1987); Livingstone, Donnelly & Parry, C F A Voysey Arts & Crafts Designer (2016); Allwood, ‘Innate Bohemians All: decorative artists in the early Garden City’, The Decorative Arts Society 1850 to the Present (2017); 'This show was a tough Tut to crack', The Times, 6 November 2021; Arts & Crafts Exhibition Catalogues, 1888-1916
Occupation
Ornamentation/Design
Style