I've just uploaded to the website my new article on the link between Philip Clissett and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The research was sparked by this chair, advertised by Russell Theaker of the Cane and Rush Workshop, and bought by my sister-in-law (this is it's original condition, but Russell did a great job of re-seating it so do check him out).

In researching out this style of chair, I noticed that some apparently identical chairs were labelled by auction houses and dealers as by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and usually sold for astonishing prices. Digging further revealed that, while a chair like this had been (somewhat tentatively) attributed to Mackintosh in the 1970s, that attribution had never been certain and was withdrawn fully in 2010.  Those chairs are indistinguishable from the one shown here, and are almost certainly by Philip Clissett. As a newcomer to this field, I find it worrying that a tentative attribution can have such an effect on prices.

Even worse, despite the withdrawal of attribution, at least one dealer is, right now, advertising several of these chairs as by Mackintosh. So, if you're in the market for an  early chair by C.R. Mackintosh, take care! And check out my new article for more information...

I have been researching Philip Clissett for some time now. What started out as a family history project turned into an attempt to pull together all the published articles about Philip. These proved rather contradictory, and rarely revealed where their "facts" came from (see the bibliography). So I set out to try to find out what was true, and what wasn't - I wanted to get it right! A sort of biographical project, but with a subject about whom little direct information survived. But there was information there, not only in the public records of censuses and so on, but also in newspapers. Increasingly, as online indexing has progressed, tiny facts have accumulated into something bigger.

As information accumulated, it seemed sensible to make as much of it available as possible. This seemed a more productive way of getting the information out there than putting it in semi-academic papers or magazine articles which would be quite difficult for many people to find. I also hoped that the website would stimulate some feedback - maybe some new information I had missed, or some feedback (even some gentle criticism would be welcome).

So I was pleased to be contacted by the Arts & Design Correspondent of the International Herald Tribune who was putting together an article on Clissett's ladderback chairs, and passed on some fresh information. Alice Rawsthorn's article was published in the newspaper on 11 March, and online on the New York Times website. A bit of a shock when you've spent time trying to iron out contradictions and determine what's right. This article, while drawing extensively on (and referencing) www.philipclissett.co.uk, manages to not only republish some of the old errors, but also fabricates a bunch of new ones. As a newspaper website gets blasted all over the internet, this is rather undermining my attempt at getting it right! So beware, and take the "facts" in this article with a pinch of salt...

On the other hand, it's nice to get a bit of publicity for Philip, and a huge increase in website hits too. So many thanks, Alice, for that.