Lunchtime Lecture : Owen Jones and the V&A

Owen Jones, one of the most influential designers and architectural theorists of the mid-19th century, had a close creative relationship with the early V&A. This talk by Olivia Horsfall Turner, Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the V&A, draws on her research for a recently published book on the subject. It will examine each of the projects that linked Jones and the museum: his famous illustrated publication The Grammar of Ornament (1856), his decorative scheme for the so-called ‘Oriental Court’, and his relatively little-known book Examples of Chinese Ornament (1867). It will shed new light on both Jones’s ideas and the identity of the V&A.

Dr Olivia Horsfall Turner is Senior Curator of Architecture and Design. Her new book Owen Jones and the V&A: Ornament for a Modern Age is published by Lund Humphries and V&A Publishing.