It was Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, the English architect, graphic artist, and craftsman, who provided the earliest practical implementation in the field of Art Nouveau design. Mackmurdo's designs were in marked contrast to anything in Europe at the time. His revolutionary chair-back of around 1883 precipitated the fin-de-siècle decorative movement.

The fretwork splat, comprised of a row of slender tendrils tossed by the wind, is readily perceived today as a pivotal Art Nouveau influence. This preoccupation with movement became a hallmark of turn-of-the-century design.

Although a number of pieces of furniture, screens, graphics, and metalworks are known to have been designed by Mackmurdo, it is the Century Guild Dining Chair that is his most famous and important work. It is not known how many of the chairs were produced to Mackmurdo's design by the well-known firm of Collinson & Lock, but five of them are currently known.

Its creation is significantly early in that it was created a full decade before the erection of the famous Tassel House by Victor Horta in Brussels, considered the first true architectural representation of the Art Nouveau style.



The chair marks the beginning of the famous Art Nouveau movement with its exceptional splat. The splat of the chair becomes the key link between the English Arts and Crafts movement and the later Art Nouveau movement. It is generally regarded as the first manifestation of Art Nouveau.