Dennis Williams
Gone but not forgotten
So, continuing on the Art Nouveau - Arts and Crafts theme, here’s a couple more unsung Brummie heroes of mine that worked together as an Edwardian dream-team to enrich and delight us with their wonderful talents - the GASKINS.. Not sure who was the dominant talent, male or female…you choose…she was much the prettier, and her jewellery was to die for…you can no doubt guess which one I favour..
Bham Art Gallery Book Cover dated 1982
Georgie Gaskin by her beloved Arthur
Arthur Gaskin was born at Birmingham in 1862, the middle of three sons of Henry Gaskin of Small Heath and his second wife Emily, nee Brassington. He was educated at the Grammar School in Wolverhampton, to which town his parents moved in about 1865. Of great importance for his future life was the fact that a fellow schoolboy was Laurence Hodson, a member of a wealthy brewing firm in Burton-on-Trent, who was to become his single most important patron.
Arthur's family returned to Birmingham about 1879, and in 1883 he became a student at the School of Art there. On 21 March 1894 he married a fellow student, Georgie Evelyn Cave France, born in 1866 and the elder daughter of William Hanmer France of Marl Green, Tyseley. The couple lived in Acocks Green, Birmingham and later in Olton, Solihull.
Both artists took to jewellery making as a second career when both were mature artists. Can anyone track down their addresses for me, my FMP and Electoral Rolls subs have expired, as I don’t use them much anymore..? We can maybe see from google if they are still there? And Marl Green Tyseley??? Never heard of it...
Anyway, her family always regarded her as marrying beneath her station by being betrothed to an artist, but she persisted in the marriage and talked little about her background, according to the two daughters they had. These were Joscelyne Verney, born on 29 May 1903, and Margaret Cave, born on 12 June 1907.
The only information about Georgie's youth is to be culled from prize lists from the School of Art records and from reviews, but these records for the school, which became municipally-run in 1884 when E.R.Taylor became headmaster, are very fragmentary until the end of the century.
Information on Arthur is a little better if only because his wife wrote a short memoir after his death to help their greatest friend, Joseph Southall, write his introduction to the Memorial Exhibition catalogue. There is probably lots more on the Web out there for the devotees.
Arthur and Georgie Gaskin were a keen husband-and-wife team. They worked independently as illustrators and in a loose collaboration as metalworkers. Their working lives were spent here in Birmingham, which the Historians of the day acknowledged as "an important centre of the Arts and Crafts movement", but in 1924 they retired to live in Chipping Campden, where they both continued working. Arthur died in 1928. Shortly afterwards, Georgie moved to Kent, where she died in 1934. No suspicious circumstances.
Just some of her sumptuous jewellery and their illustrations..
Bham Art Gallery Book Cover dated 1982
Georgie Gaskin by her beloved Arthur
Arthur Gaskin was born at Birmingham in 1862, the middle of three sons of Henry Gaskin of Small Heath and his second wife Emily, nee Brassington. He was educated at the Grammar School in Wolverhampton, to which town his parents moved in about 1865. Of great importance for his future life was the fact that a fellow schoolboy was Laurence Hodson, a member of a wealthy brewing firm in Burton-on-Trent, who was to become his single most important patron.
Arthur's family returned to Birmingham about 1879, and in 1883 he became a student at the School of Art there. On 21 March 1894 he married a fellow student, Georgie Evelyn Cave France, born in 1866 and the elder daughter of William Hanmer France of Marl Green, Tyseley. The couple lived in Acocks Green, Birmingham and later in Olton, Solihull.
Both artists took to jewellery making as a second career when both were mature artists. Can anyone track down their addresses for me, my FMP and Electoral Rolls subs have expired, as I don’t use them much anymore..? We can maybe see from google if they are still there? And Marl Green Tyseley??? Never heard of it...
Anyway, her family always regarded her as marrying beneath her station by being betrothed to an artist, but she persisted in the marriage and talked little about her background, according to the two daughters they had. These were Joscelyne Verney, born on 29 May 1903, and Margaret Cave, born on 12 June 1907.
The only information about Georgie's youth is to be culled from prize lists from the School of Art records and from reviews, but these records for the school, which became municipally-run in 1884 when E.R.Taylor became headmaster, are very fragmentary until the end of the century.
Information on Arthur is a little better if only because his wife wrote a short memoir after his death to help their greatest friend, Joseph Southall, write his introduction to the Memorial Exhibition catalogue. There is probably lots more on the Web out there for the devotees.
Arthur and Georgie Gaskin were a keen husband-and-wife team. They worked independently as illustrators and in a loose collaboration as metalworkers. Their working lives were spent here in Birmingham, which the Historians of the day acknowledged as "an important centre of the Arts and Crafts movement", but in 1924 they retired to live in Chipping Campden, where they both continued working. Arthur died in 1928. Shortly afterwards, Georgie moved to Kent, where she died in 1934. No suspicious circumstances.
Just some of her sumptuous jewellery and their illustrations..
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