GEORGE HENRY WALTON (1867-1933) FOR ELMBANK, YORK ART NOUVEAU WARDROBE, CIRCA 1920 satin birch, stained and leaded glass, with silvered metal fittings, bears ivorine label verso GEORGE WALTON & CO. / 150 AND 152 WELLINGTON STREET GLASGOW, lined interior (142cm wide, 195cm high, 56cm deep) Footnote: Literature: Moon, K. George Walton, Designer and Architect, White Cockade 1993, pages 64-70 Agius, P. British Furniture 1880-1905' ACC 1978, page 102, pl. 105 Note: George Walton was born in Glasgow on 3 June 1867, the youngest of twelve children. The painter, Edward Arthur Walton, born in 1860, was his elder brother and the flower painter, Constance Walton, his sister. His father died in 1873 leaving the family in reduced circumstances and Walton had to leave school aged thirteen to become a clerk with the British Linen Bank, but while working there he also studied at Glasgow School of Art (as the School of Design had become in 1869). In 1888 Miss Catherine Cranston commissioned Walton to re-design the interiors of the tea rooms at 114 Argyle Street, Glasgow. Walton gave up banking and opened showrooms entitled George Walton & Co, Ecclesiastical and House Decorators, at 152 Wellington Street. The Walton firm quickly expanded into woodwork, furniture making and stained glass. In 1896 Walton received a further commission from Miss Cranston to decorate the Buchanan Street premises. His collaborator was C. R. Mackintosh, for whom Walton made some early pieces of furniture. In 1897 Walton moved to London and, as well as retaining his Glasgow showroom, opened a branch in York. This wardrobe demonstrates all of the characteristics of the furniture produced for Elm Bank, York by Walton & Co. in 1898 for Sydney Leetham. The furniture is inlaid with bold geometric chevron banding, a type of decoration that had been revived and popularised by George Jack at Morris & Co., however, the use of this technique at Elm Bank was altogether bolder and more expansive. This bedroom suite also demonstrates stained glass detailing derived from plant forms, with metal and wood also inset, relating to techniques being produced by Charles Rennie Mackintosh at the same time.