Crafts Council

The Crafts Council
44A Pentonville Road
Islington
London
City of London
N1 9BY
England

Website

www.craftscouncil.org.uk

Photostore

www.craftscouncil.org.uk/photostore

E-mail

reference@craftscouncil.org.uk

Photostore

photostore@craftscouncil.org.uk

Telephone

020 7278 7700

Fax

020 7837 6891

Photostore

20 7806 2503

All information is supplied by the venues or providers themselves and every effort is made to ensure it is correct. Please remember to double check opening hours with the venue concerned before making a special visit.

The Crafts Council is an independent body funded by the Arts Council of England. The Crafts Council offers public access to its own reference library and picture library and Photostore, an electronic image database of contemporary craftwork. It publishes CRAFTS, its own magazine, six times a year, as well as organising Origin The London Craft Fair at Somerset House, COLLECT at V&A and extensive touring exhibition programmes. The Crafts Council provides economic support to crafts people by creating opportunities for exhibiting and selling their work and helps a number of new makers each year to set up in business through the Crafts Council Setting Up Scheme. Photostore is the Crafts Council's applied art research and commissioning tool, profiling over 1,000 selected designer-makers and featuring 50,000 images of their work. Now available online, Photostore enables users, through its instinctive search options: to browse information on designer-makers efficiently, look at examples of their work and contact makers of interest from the user’s desktop.

Venue Type:

Library

Opening hours

closed for refurbishment until end 2006

General services and facilities

Brochure or leaflet available with directions to museum
Pre-booking service for groups
Shop

Children and families

Events and resources for children and families

Disability access

Touch exhibits
Toilets for disabled
Wheelchair access to all public areas

Schools services and facilities

Member of staff available with responsibility for education
Primary school education service available
Printed/audio-visual information available for schools
Secondary school education service available
Education facilities available

Research and adult learning

Academic publications and resources available
Adult lectures and courses held
Loan service
Teaching/resources available for HE/FE students
Library
Library with public access
Mail order service available
Research facilities for academics
Study facilities

Commercial and hire services

Meeting room available

Additional info

All public areas of the Council are accessible by wheelchair.

The Crafts Council
44A Pentonville Road
Islington
London
City of London
N1 9BY
England

Website

www.craftscouncil.org.uk

Photostore

www.craftscouncil.org.uk/photostore

E-mail

reference@craftscouncil.org.uk

Photostore

photostore@craftscouncil.org.uk

Telephone

020 7278 7700

Fax

020 7837 6891

Photostore

20 7806 2503

The Crafts Council Collection began in 1972, a year after the Crafts Council (then the Crafts Advisory Committee) was established. The first objects in the Collection date from the time of the British Potters' Exhibition, when pieces by such potters as Bernard Leach, Hans Coper and Lucie Rie were acquired. Its purpose is to buy work by artists living in England, Wales and Scotland for public exhibition. It is administered by the Exhibitions Department at the Crafts Council, 44a Pentonville Road, London N1 9BY. The Collection numbers over 1200 objects spanning all the main media: ceramics, glass, metal, jewellery, furniture, textiles, wood, baskets, automata, calligraphy, lettering and bookbinding. It includes the work of many internationally acclaimed figures and we aim to maintain a balance between purchasing work from young makers and those already well established. Work is rarely purchased retrospectively, although a leeway of five years does exist.
The purchasing panel, comprising of makers, critics and museum/gallery representatives as well as Crafts Council staff, meets annually to discuss purchase recommendations; these are then followed up by studio and exhibition visits.