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Haynes became established as the leading display designer in London (Tommy Roberts - “Mr Freedom”, described as the best in the world!), and in 1970 was invited to design the fashion section of the British Exhibition of Design at the Museum des Arts Decoratif, Paris. Sadly his original designs in Perspex were not permitted by the Fire Officer on grounds of being a potential fire hazard to the museum.
Early acrylic paintings and furniture at Belgravia basement flat circa 1971
In 1971 Cecil Beaton asked Haynes to design his exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, “Fashion: An Anthology”. Beaton had accumulated a breathtaking collection of clothes designed by the most celebrated designers of the 20th Century. And worn by fashion icons such as Mrs Loel Guinness, The Duchess of Windsor, Empress Eugene; Mrs Diana Vreeland and Madame Martinez de Hoz. These included Balenciaga; Worth; Schiaparelli; Vionet; Dior; Grey; Balmain; Chanel; Hartnell; Fortuny; Callot; shoe designers, Vivier & Rayne.
Invitation card 1971
Michael Haynes first attracted attention in London with his award winning window displays in the Swinging Sixties. In 1965, Lady Churchill, and her daughter Lady Soames, noticed a window display commemorating the life of Sir Winston Churchill in a store in Regent Street. As a result, Haynes was commissioned by The National Trust to design and install the Museum Rooms at Chartwell, Sir Winston’s country home. In 1974, The Churchill Centenary Trust commissioned Haynes to design and install the Churchill Centenary Exhibition at Somerset House.
Churchill Museum Chartwell
Haynes designed and built exhibitions at the London Museum (Kensington Palace) “Mary Quants London”; The Churchill Centenary Exhibition at
Somerset House, 1974; The World Islamic Festival; “Arts of the Hausa”, at the Commonwealth Institute, 1975; The Thomas More Quincentenary Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, 1978; The 20th Century Rooms at the National Portrait Gallery in 1982; Coco Chanel Exhibition at Sotherby’s, Bond Street,1984; Exhibition of Contemporary Applied Arts, Sotherby’s, Bond Street, 1989.
From Churchill to Mecca!
3D Acrylic display panel installed in over 2000 betting shops with enlarged photo panels of Winston Churchill for the Churchill Centenary Exhibition Somerset House London
Michael Haynes circa 1974 photograph courtesy Sunday Times
Somerset House, 1974; The World Islamic Festival; “Arts of the Hausa”, at the Commonwealth Institute, 1975; The Thomas More Quincentenary Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, 1978; The 20th Century Rooms at the National Portrait Gallery in 1982; Coco Chanel Exhibition at Sotherby’s, Bond Street,1984; Exhibition of Contemporary Applied Arts, Sotherby’s, Bond Street, 1989.
From Churchill to Mecca!
3D Acrylic display panel installed in over 2000 betting shops with enlarged photo panels of Winston Churchill for the Churchill Centenary Exhibition Somerset House London
Michael Haynes circa 1974 photograph courtesy Sunday Times
The Late Queen Mother at the opening of the Churchill Centenary Exhibition, Somerset House 1974.
Explaining the Exhibits are Winston Churchill and Michael Haynes
In the background The Duke of Marlborough with Sir John Colville
Explaining the Exhibits are Winston Churchill and Michael Haynes
In the background The Duke of Marlborough with Sir John Colville
Fosseway House Workshops
The first combined group exhibition of the work from both Fosseway House and 4011/2 was held in the art gallery at the Commonwealth Institute in 1980. The catalogue (ISBN No. 0-900906-87-71) was designed by Haynes and the exhibition selection was made by Michael Rowe, Jill Crowley, Diana Harrison and Michael Haynes. The exhibition was organized by Fred Lightfoot MBE. John Houston produced most of the text. for the catalogue.
Other group exhibitions were designed and organized in the Westminster Gallery, Boston, 1981, The Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, 1984, Olympia Arts Fair, 1988. Open days had become a regular feature of both the London and Stow-on-the-Wold studios from 1971. Twice yearly open days have continued to feature in the workshop
regular activities.
The first combined group exhibition of the work from both Fosseway House and 4011/2 was held in the art gallery at the Commonwealth Institute in 1980. The catalogue (ISBN No. 0-900906-87-71) was designed by Haynes and the exhibition selection was made by Michael Rowe, Jill Crowley, Diana Harrison and Michael Haynes. The exhibition was organized by Fred Lightfoot MBE. John Houston produced most of the text. for the catalogue.
Other group exhibitions were designed and organized in the Westminster Gallery, Boston, 1981, The Ashgate Gallery, Farnham, 1984, Olympia Arts Fair, 1988. Open days had become a regular feature of both the London and Stow-on-the-Wold studios from 1971. Twice yearly open days have continued to feature in the workshop
regular activities.
Photo Mustafa Sani 1980
Elsfield has several interesting former owners:
Francis Wise was the Curate and Radcliffe Librarian; during his lifetime Wise enjoyed a reputation as an antiquary, although he is best remembered now for the pleasing story of Dr Johnson’s visit to him in 1754. Wise was responsible for designing the beautiful garden surrounding the house; there were groves and lawns on the hillside below the house with ponds and cascades and also scale models of a triumphal arch, pyrimid Druid temple and the tower of Babel. He also built a stable in imitation of a Norman religious structure.
John Buchan, famous in two continents, settled in the manor house soon after the end of the first world. He loved the house and the village and after his death in Ottowa as the Governor General of Canada, his body was brought home by battleship and is is burried in Elsfield church with his wife Susan.
More recently, the honourable Mirriam Lane made it an ecological haven in her researches into moths, butterflies and entomology. Apart from obvious English flora such as aconites, snow drops, primroses, daffodils, bluebells and cow slips which abound, wild anemones and also the snakesfield fritillary.
Francis Wise was the Curate and Radcliffe Librarian; during his lifetime Wise enjoyed a reputation as an antiquary, although he is best remembered now for the pleasing story of Dr Johnson’s visit to him in 1754. Wise was responsible for designing the beautiful garden surrounding the house; there were groves and lawns on the hillside below the house with ponds and cascades and also scale models of a triumphal arch, pyrimid Druid temple and the tower of Babel. He also built a stable in imitation of a Norman religious structure.
John Buchan, famous in two continents, settled in the manor house soon after the end of the first world. He loved the house and the village and after his death in Ottowa as the Governor General of Canada, his body was brought home by battleship and is is burried in Elsfield church with his wife Susan.
More recently, the honourable Mirriam Lane made it an ecological haven in her researches into moths, butterflies and entomology. Apart from obvious English flora such as aconites, snow drops, primroses, daffodils, bluebells and cow slips which abound, wild anemones and also the snakesfield fritillary.
On the ground floor were the principal reception rooms which provided an opportunity to house a growing collection of work acquired in the London and Stow-on-the-Wold studios. As well as an opportunity to design and make acrylic furniture and light fittings, including chandeliers, doors, a four poster bed, chaise, a collectors cabinet, a drinks cabinet, sofas, arm chairs, dining and hall chairs.
Dining Room Elsfield Manor photo Derry Moore
In 1976, Haynes was invited by a group of enthusiastic arts interested Oxford based families to advise in acquiring the empty former manor house and home of John Buchan. Then owned by the emptimolgist and field expert Miriam Lane (Rothchild).
The house had been empty for five years and provided an immense challenge for the new owners. Haynes loved the house and immediately showed interest in becoming a joint owner. The ground and lower ground floor consisted of 18 rooms.
Acrylic furniture Michael Haynes, ceramic head's on mantelpiece Jill Crowley
Far right acrylic showcase work Carol McNicoll
Reception Room Elsfield Manor photo Derry Moore courtesy of Architectural Digest
The house had been empty for five years and provided an immense challenge for the new owners. Haynes loved the house and immediately showed interest in becoming a joint owner. The ground and lower ground floor consisted of 18 rooms.
Acrylic furniture Michael Haynes, ceramic head's on mantelpiece Jill Crowley
Far right acrylic showcase work Carol McNicoll
Reception Room Elsfield Manor photo Derry Moore courtesy of Architectural Digest
In 1975 Haynes was invited by Mrs Anne Whitby to utilize her empty manor house at the back of the Square, in Stow on the World. The house became “Fosseway House Workshops”, and gave an opportunity to graduate artists and crafts people to live and work as a group in the house. Haynes went to the Summer Degree Show at the Royal College of Art to find new talent. Peter Bolton, Neil Ions and Susan Rangely were outstanding. The group successfully lasted 10 years before the house was given back to the generous owner.
Sketch of Fosseway House Workshops by Peter Niczewski circa 1976
401 members 1979
From left Michael Haynes, Andrew Logan, Julie Arkell, Diana Harrison, Michael Rowe, Jill Crowley, Joanna Buxton, Tessa Lambert, Edward Dilarge, Rodger Morris, Sue Nemeth, Gary Wright, Sheila Teague
Foreground Susan Wilks and Peter Niczewski
Photograph Ken Griffiths Courtesy Crafts Magazine
Foreground Susan Wilks and Peter Niczewski
Photograph Ken Griffiths Courtesy Crafts Magazine
His friendship with Judy Brittain, then ‘Living Editor’ of Vogue Magazine, provided the names of about ten initial young artists who joined the group. Haynes went to the Summer Degree Show at the Royal College of Art in 1972. The department of ceramics was very impressive that year. He invited Alison Britton, Carol McNicholl, Jill Crowley, Jacqueline Poncelet to come to the studios. He also liked the work of Diana Harrison (printed textiles) and Joanna Buxton (woven textiles) and from the Department of metalwork and jewellery, Haynes found the work of Robert Marsden and Michael Rowe stunning! All set up their first professional studios at 4011/2. By the Autumn of 1972 the studios were full and the project,one of the first of its kind in London had made a successful start and soon attracted the press. The venture was featured in many national papers and magazines.
Under the auspices of Judy Brittain at Vogue, the first group commissions came from the architects designing a new Palace for the Sultan of Bruni. An extraordinary
Australian, Ridley Buttrose, was commissioned to make a series of large rope hangings. Haynes made perspex furniture; the weavers made cushions and textiles. Interior designers found the studios a haven for finding new work. A client who had
a house and his offices in Mayfair, commissioned the group to furnish his buildings with a wide variety of objects including furniture, textiles, metalwork.
In 1971 Michael Haynes looked for a suitable studio to share with artists and craftspeople and found a charming ex food warehouse at the unlikely address of “4011/2” Wandsworth Road, in South London quite close to Chelsea and Vauxhall Bridges. The 10,000 square feet Victorian warehouse (built circa 1870) provided excellent rooms for his own studios, and also provided sufficient room to be able to invite arts graduates to work under the same roof.
Sir Cecil and Haynes worked on a number of design projects in Europe and the United States from 1971 - 1975 including designs for the Sheraton Hotel, Brussels; Salisbury Arts Festival; and a “Crystal Charity Ball”, at the Fairmount Hotel, Dallas, Texas. Beaton had admired Haynes’s work with acrylic and asked him to create a pastiche of the “Crystal Palace” in Perspex which was 100 feet by 50 feet. The Ball was a glittering occasion, attended by President and Mrs Johnson as well as a host of Prince’s and Princes’s flown in from Europe. Bob Marley and the Whalers were in included in the entertainment.
The Sir Thomas More Quincentenary Exhibition The National Gallery 1978
