Encompassing everything from textiles, metalwork, basketry and jewellery to glass, furniture and ceramics, crafts and applied arts have played a complex role in the social, cultural and artistic history of Britain. Modern British applied art emerged in the late 19th century as part of a reaction to a more generalised anxiety about the growing commodification and consumption of objects in industrialised society, with early practitioners such as William Morris pioneering a workshop-based craft movement. The early 20th century saw the development of the studio pottery movement spearheaded by Bernard Leach, and its ideals continued to exert a strong influence not just in the post-war period but right up to the present day. By the early 1990s, the demand for extreme mannerism which had characterised British craft production during the eighties was subsumed by a honed-down response to environmental crisis with the trend towards elegant recycling.

Today, caught between the more powerful disciplines of fine art, architecture and industrial design, the crafts are having to constantly redefine themselves. As in the visual arts, the division between these disciplines has become increasingly blurred. Unlike previous generations, contemporary makers, such as Tord Boontje, Shelley Fox and Michael Marriott occupy positions as leading British designers and craft ‘makers’, producing both industrially produced and hand-made work, in small scale batch production. At the same time, respected makers continue to engage traditional media and produce high quality hand-made objects of great integrity.