Finback Chair: M.2-2005

Titles

Finback Chair

Maker(s)

Designer: Burt, Matthew
Maker: Boon, Ian

Entities

• Chair

Categories

• Furniture

Description

Finback chair, elm, with one flat sloping back leg, and two tricorn front legs

Finback chair. Elm (Ulmus procera), sculpted using handheld power machines, followed by spokeshaves, files, scrapers, and finally hand held abrasive papers on blocks. The finish is two coats of beeswax. The seat is one piece of wood. The back leg is laminated vertically, and is held to the fin-shaped back support by an internally longitudinally tapering slot dovetail housing. The two front legs profiled into a tricorn cross section using a spindle moulder and holding jigs.The principal joints are internally positioned stainless steel threaded bars, resined into the timber. A pair with M.1-2005

Notes

History note: Matthew Burt, Sherrington, from whom purchased with M.1-2005 by the donors

Legal notes

Gift of Nicholas and Judith Goodison through the National Art Collections Fund

Place(s) associated

• Sherrington ⪼ Wiltshire ⪼ England

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (2005-01-31) by Goodison, Nicholas and Judith

Dating

21st Century, Early
Elizabeth II
Production date: AD 2004

Note

Text from object entry in A. Game (2016) ‘Contemporary British Crafts: The Goodison Gift to the Fitzwilliam Museum’. London: Philip Wilson Publishers: Matthew Burt studied Zoology and then Furniture-Making at Rycotewood College. He worked for a time as an apprentice to Richard Fyson (1917–2007) of Kencot, Oxfordshire before establishing his own workshop in 1979 in the Wylye Valley in Wiltshire. He was much influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, Kencot being near Kelmscott, the home of William Morris (1834–96), and Sapperton where Ernest Barnsley (1863-1926), Sidney Barnsley (1865–1926) and Ernest Gimson (1864–1919) worked and inspired a generation of craftsmen. His business expanded and in 2013 he moved it to a larger purpose-built site in Hindon, in south-west Wiltshire, close to his village showroom. The site includes a dedicated design studio and well-equipped workshops, where with his wife Celia, the administrative director, he leads a team of designers, makers and apprentices. The business works largely to commission, creating free-standing and fitted furniture for private clients, museums, galleries, restaurants, cafes, pubs, business headquarters, churches and gardens. His visitors’ benches can be seen in the Ashmolean Museum, the Courtauld Gallery, the National Museum of Wales and the World Museum, Liverpool. The design and prototypes were developed by Matthew Burt between 2000 and 2003. This prototype was completed in 2001. Chairs can be made by any of the senior craftsmen in his workshop. Burt’s aims were to rely on the intrinsic strength of wood and do away with the traditional mortiseand- tenon support frame, to produce a comfortable sculpted form with economy of material. The seat is made of one piece of wood. During the design stage of the commission Burt lengthened and widened the fin back of the chairs to give it more presence in relation to the seat.

The design and prototypes were developed by Matthew Burt between 2000 and 2003, and the chairs can be made by any of the four craftsmen in his workshop, in this case Ian Boon

School or Style

Contemporary Craft