Marquetry hasn't always been the popular art form that it is today. Why, if you only go back to the middle of the last century it wasn't really acknowledged as anything that much pictorial at all, except in the form of flowery and geometric furniture decoration.
So what, you ask, brought about this transformation of a furniture decorators craft into an up and coming art form? well, with a little bit of the old "Sherlock Holmes" style of investigation we have unearthed the sequence of events that has resulted in the Marquetry movement of today that is carefully guided and headed by that august body of artists and craftsmen known to everyone as the Marquetry Society.

Well then, how did it all begin?

It all started in 1952 with an innocent question posed by a Mr Jack Cox who at the time was residing in Dunkenfield, Cheshire. Mr Cox was gallantly "having a try" at making some pictures in the then somewhat unknown medium of marquetry.
Materials and methods were not that readily available to the general public in those days. Veneers were the domain of the cabinet making fraternity, and PVA glue was unheard of in the early 1950's. So, feeling somewhat frustrated at the lack of interest from the professional level of the trade and unable to locate any like minded people in his locality, Mr Cox wrote a letter to the "Popular Handicrafts" magazine asking for anyone who was interested in the art of marquetry to write back to him on the prospects of starting a Marquetry movement.
This single letter of Jack Cox's culminated in an initial group consisting of 92 members long before the movement's first year had run it's full course.
It was then, in the early summer month of July in 1952 that six of those members gathered on the steps of that World famous landmark St Paul's Cathedral. After introducing themselves to each other, they adjourned to a café on a bombsite in Ludgate Hill (don't forget that this was only a few years after the end of the war and the Blitz, so there were still loads of air raid and bomb damage areas of London remaining). Over hot tea and toast they held the very first A.G.M. of the newly formed Marquetry Society, although sadly, there were no Trophy presentations at that initial A.G.M. like there is at today's high powered gatherings!

At the end of this newly formed Marquetry Society's first year they held the very first National Exhibition in the foyer of the Odeon cinema, Guildford. This first exhibition enjoyed an entry of 170 exhibits and was so successful that it was sent on a tour of the Odeon and Gaumont cinemas all over the country.

The following is an actual report of that first exhibition with a list of the results from the winning classes:-
 

This first Marquetry National Exhibition was held in the foyer of the Odeon Cinema, Guildford on the 25th April 1953.
There were 140 entries in the competition classes which were split into the following classes:-
 

After the exhibition closed at Guildford, it went on tour in September 1953 to the following locations:

Kensington, Birmingham, Nottingham, Bristol, Leeds, Harrogate, Edinburgh, Manchester.

The results from the competition classes in that first National Exhibition are as follows:-
 

The first proper annual General Meeting was held in Birmingham on Sunday the 30th August 1953.
A Mrs. Stenning (the Birmingham District Secretary) arranged for a light tea to be made available to all members attending. The estimated cost for both the hire of the room and tea to be 3/6d per head (that's 17½p in today's money, it isn't even as much as one fifth of a pound! just compare that to today's costs!)
Members arriving by train at Birmingham Station would be met by members of the Birmingham Group. A mark of identity was recommended to be worn and it was suggested that a piece of blue ribbon displayed on the coat should be sufficient.

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As you will have noted from the results table above, Mr. Cliff Penny (London) rather seemed to dominate that very first National Exhibition. Unfortunately, at the moment, we haven't yet been able to locate any photos of the actual exhibits (although a professional photographer was drafted in to record the event) but, we are trying our best to locate some copies of the photos if they still exist. However, for the time being we have found some photos of Cliff Penny's work, plus one of him working on one of the pictures. To see these historic photos just click this link:

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The actual complete 1953 report on the first National Exhibition has been found and made available to your editorial team, so, for the contemporary report (as it was written in 1953) just click this following link:

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For an added bonus we have acquired some original copies of the very first editions of the Marquetarian magazine. It makes fascinating reading, especially when you compare it to today's highly professionally edited and published production. The early magazine has an endearing "home produced" quality about it. We have added a few extracts to this site for you to enjoy. Because of the printing methods used at the time, and the structure of the type setting, we have OCR'd (that's actually scanning the pages into a "Word" document by using optical character recognition software to do the conversion) the worst pages and displayed them here in our usual type face. None of the text has been changed or altered except for the removal of postal addresses, which were included in those early articles. So, to read the articles just click this following link:

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At long last we have acquired some photos of the marquetry exhibits from those early National Exhibitions of the 1950's.
The photos are unfortunately in black and white - and are a little poor in quality, but nonetheless they give you a good idea of the high standards that were in operation in those early days.
One of the photos is actually from the Society's 3rd National Exhibition in 1955 - we think you will find it fascinating.
To see those photos, click this following link: