John Makepeace is Britain’s foremost furniture designer, and makes unique museum-quality pieces of furniture that will not be repeated for anyone else…
If ever there was an apposite expression for John Makepeace’s rise from small boy whittling wooden objects out of discarded skirting board to internationally renowned, award-winning furniture maker collected by everyone from grand dukes to the V&A, then it must surely be “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow”.
“As a child I loved whittling,” says Makepeace, admitting to initially ‘varying degrees of success’ at a pursuit that first sparked his passion for making. “We were evacuated to Wales during the War so my father was toing and froing, and when we moved back to the house just outside Birmingham it needed quite a lot of attention, including replacing skirting boards that were rotten. In 1946 it was really hard to get any wood at all, so offcuts from the skirting were heaven for me.”
Fittingly, for a boy, the local cricket bat works also became another source of offcuts, but it was the presence of ‘three rather special’ pieces of furniture in the family home that have had the biggest influence on his later career choice. “They were made by my paternal grandfather who was a cabinet maker in Ipswich,” reflects Makepeace. “They had a really quite special quality.”
The death of his father before he was 18 prompted him to rethink a teenage ambition to enter the Church, and instead of heading off to university, Makepeace decided to pursue a career in furniture design and making, spurred on by several summers ‘gleaning a lot about the design scene’ in Holland, Denmark and Sweden.
“On leaving school I began looking for somewhere to train, and that brought me to Dorset and to a maker at Lychett Matravers, who was very good on the construction of furniture. He told me not to expect to make a living from making furniture, and suggested I qualify to teach through a distance learning programme in the evenings and weekends. To complete this, I taught in Birmingham for two few years. Teaching persuaded me I didn’t want to teach.”
Working on furniture commissions and exhibiting at various London venues, Makepeace featured extensively in the national press. “It was not long before I was selected as a member of the Chartered Society of Designers. I was getting design recognition for a range of products, which were made for design retailers, such as Heal’s and Liberty,” explains Makepeace. “That in turn led to recognition from the architectural profession and I was commissioned to furnish interiors for Oxford’s Templeton College, where we did 24 study bedrooms, the library, and then 120 rooms for Keble College, Oxford, and other domestic and office buildings. The large contracts involved unacceptable compromises on singular items of furniture and it was at that stage that museums started commissioning pieces for their permanent collections, such as the V&A, Birmingham Museum, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Leeds, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. ”
In 1976, at the age of 37, Makepeace bought Parnham House in Beaminster, West Dorset, and set up the world-famous furniture college alongside, but separate from his own furniture studio (distinguished alumni include David Linley and Konstantin Grcic).
Following the sale of Parnham in 2001, Makepeace and his wife, Jennie, purchased the beautiful Farrs, a listed house in Beaminster, which now functions as home, gardens, design studio, gallery, with timber seasoning in adjacent buildings for current and future commissions. The house and garden, open for charity several times a year, are hugely popular with visitors.
Today Makepeace is Britain’s most renowned furniture maker, collected by major museums, corporate and private collections in the UK, Europe, US and China. The recipient of Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Furniture Society, a founding member of the Crafts Council in the UK and a former Trustee of the V&A, Makepeace was awarded an OBE for services to furniture design in 1988. With many projects currently in the pipeline, including work at Chatsworth House and chairs for Plymouth University’s Graduation Ceremonies, slowing down doesn’t appear to be an option for Makepeace.
Whether it’s a new commission or the properties of different timbers, his enthusiasm still remains as potent as ever: “There are a lot of common trees, such as beech, that are grown big but very dull, so I don’t use those. What I’m particularly interested in using are the more distinctive woods like yew, holly, walnut, burr oak and ripple sycamore – now quite rare but very beautiful.”
Unsurprisingly, then, a piece by John Makepeace is not something that can be hurried along. “One of the issues I find nowadays is that when people are moving house they are inclined to want everything right this moment,” he says. “My pieces often take 12 months, but clients understand that it takes time to make objects of exceptional quality. To help them visualise my proposals I provide very realistic perspectives.”
Tirelessly committed to excellence in design and its ability to transform our homes and lives, Makepeace believes in design as an evolving process. “It’s about how we experience the object,” he explains. “Just as theatre or music is about communication, so is design. Objects speak to people who are receptive; I want them to experience the continuing delight from using a Makepeace. Integrity in design expresses the rationale for the object, and its structure and inventiveness that adds to its functionality. I’ve often analysed the components of design as function, structure and expression.”
For Makepeace, quality in furniture design determines its longevity, whether it’s a beautiful collector’s cabinet, a dining room for a palace, or a bedroom for a guest house in Connecticut. “That sense of permanence, of passing things on, adds a further dimension. Some clients are particularly family orientated and consider what each member of their family will have after they have gone. To me, the things that are worth having are worth having for ever.”
And with that, Makepeace hands me an image of an exquisite ‘Mulberry’ dining table, one of a series of different ‘leaf’ tables inlaid with polished bronze. If ever there was an object worth having, and made to be treasured for generations to come, then this one is surely a perfect example.
Private clients can make an appointment at Farrs. For more information visit John Makepeace
Main image from John Makepeace – Jurassic: a desk in washed oak and buffalo suede
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