ARCHIBALD KNOX 1864-1933

Archibald Knox was born in the village of Cronkbourne, near Tromode on the Isle of Man in the April of 1864. The son of William Knox, a master machine maker, originally from Ayr in Scotland, the young Knox was educated at elementary and grammar schools in Douglas, the island’s capital.

Between 1878 and 1883 he studied at Douglas School of Art, passing examinations in ‘Design’ and in ‘Principles of Ornament’. Between 1884 and 1888, Archibald Knox taught art at the school and in 1889 he gained his Art Master’s Certificate.

Throughout his growing years he had always been influenced and inspired not only by the Manx countryside but also by the many ancient Celtic stone crosses found all over the island. In the early 1890s he wrote articles such as ‘Ancient Crosses on the Isle of Man’ and ‘The Isle of Man as a sketching ground’, showing an almost instinctive insight into the mysterious and ancient landscape and its long- past Celtic history.

This influence and inspiration stayed with Archibald Knox throughout his life. The strange and intricately carved patterns on the stone crosses with their intertwining designs were to become the recognisable symbols of his work, especially in his superb and richly decorative jewellery pieces.

In 1897 Archibald Knox moved to the English mainland to take up a teaching post at Redhill School of Art in Surrey. He was also involved with the studios of the distinguished designer of silverware, ceramics and glass, Christopher Dresser. He began designing for Liberty & Co. of London, creating items of jewellery and working on their Cymric series of silverware. After 1902, the Tudric series of pewterware was introduced for which Knox designed innumerable items on a piecework basis.

Throughout this time, Archibald Knox was still teaching at various Schools of Art – not only at Redhill but at Kingston and at Wimbledon as well.

Being so influenced by the style and motifs of Celtic art, Knox used their modified forms in creating both his Cymric and Tudric ware, producing modern shapes and designs from ancient ideas. Many of these traditional Celtic designs – the interwoven, sinuous stem and leaf patterns, the intricate knotwork and the stylised animals and birds – were minimalised to the subtle and deceptively simple lines that became symbolic of the English Art Nouveau movement,

It is thought that the Celtic names ‘Cymric’ and ‘Tudric’ were used by Liberty & Co. as a tribute to the Welsh ancestors of one of their directors, John Llewellyn.

However, the name of Archibald Knox does not appear on any of the objects that he designed for the firm, nor in the Liberty catalogues of the time. This was not the company’s practice. Most of their records were destroyed in the London blitz of WW2 and because of this, many articles are just labelled as ‘attributed to Archibald Knox’. But it is agreed by devotees of Knox’s work, his mark of genius is unmistakable.

After a year’s stay in America, Knox returned home to the Isle of Man in 1913 where he resumed teaching. During the war years 1914-1918, he was employed as a censor in an Alien’s Detention Camp it Knockaloe on the Isle of Man.

Archibald Knox spent the last years of his life teaching both full and part time at schools in Douglas before his death from heart failure, in 1933.

Like many of the artists and craftsmen of the Art Nouveau era, Archibald Knox was a prolific designer. He produced many hundreds of incredibly innovative ideas for Liberty’s alone, during the years of their collaboration. He always seemed to have an instinctive feel for the capabilities of any material that he used, be it silver, gold, pewter, enamels, ceramics or textiles. He used them all and in his hands these diverse elements would be transformed into remarkable and unique works of art that were both immensely practical to use and aesthetically, immensely pleasing to the eye.