Private Collections

The Elmhirsts and the Art of Modern Living

15 September 2026

Philip Smith

For Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst, the rooms in which people lived, worked and gathered deserved serious consideration. Their choice of furniture formed part of the same thinking that shaped Dartington Hall, where they brought progressive education, rural regeneration and the arts into close association.

Surviving furniture from their collection gives that history a tangible form. Gerald Summers’ six ‘CB’ chairs and ‘ADN’ dining table furnished the Chekhov Theatre Studio at Dartington, while six Gordon Russell chairs were chosen for the Elmhirsts’ London dining room before joining the furnishings of the Devon estate.

^{Illustrated above: Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst at Dartington Hall, late 1930s. Illustrated below: Ballet Jooss on the Tiltyard 1936, Contemporary of Chekhov. Photographs courtesy of The Dartington Hall Trust}

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Building a Modern Community at Dartington Hall

When the Elmhirsts purchased Dartington Hall in 1925, they began a project whose ambitions reached well beyond the restoration of a neglected medieval house. Leonard’s work with Rabindranath Tagore in India had helped shape his belief in the relationship between education, agriculture and cultural life. Dorothy brought an independent commitment to social reform and an informed interest in contemporary art. Together, they supported artists, architects and makers whose ideas could find practical expression within the community they were establishing.

Their architectural commissions reveal the scope of that patronage. William Lescaze’s High Cross House introduced an assured modern presence to the Dartington estate, while Serge Chermayeff’s remodelling of their London residence at 42 Upper Brook Street in 1933–34 brought a similarly thoughtful approach to their domestic surroundings. Furniture mattered within these interiors, both for its usefulness and for the way it shaped the experience of a room.

Gerald Summers and the Chekhov Theatre Studio

Gerald Summers’s work was well suited to such patrons. In 1931, he and Marjorie Butcher established Makers of Simple Furniture, producing designs that explored the possibilities of plywood with considerable originality. Summers understood how much could be achieved through the careful cutting and bending of the material. His furniture had a directness that depended on close attention to construction, proportion and use.

Commissioned by the Elmhirsts, the ‘CB’ chairs and ‘ADN’ table were used in the Chekhov Theatre Studio at Dartington, where they are recorded in a contemporary photograph. Martha Deese also discusses Dorothy’s acquisition of the table and six chairs in late 1934 or 1935 in her study, Gerald Summers & Marjorie Butcher: Makers of Simple Furniture 1931–1940. Their presence in the studio places them within one of the most creatively active settings on the estate.

The ‘CB’, or curved-back, chair is a particularly accomplished exercise in making a small amount of material do a great deal. Flat plywood side supports are combined with a moulded backrest, set low enough for the chair to slide beneath a table or desk. From the front, the thin edges of the supports give the chair an almost insubstantial appearance; seen from the side, their profile supplies its distinctive shape. These are practical decisions with a strong visual consequence. Around the ‘ADN’ table, the six chairs formed an ensemble appropriate to the adaptable working space of the theatre studio.

^{Illustrated below: Michael Checkov with Dorothy Elmhirst in the Studio, Dartington Hall. | Gerald Summers furniture in the relaxing area of the Chekhov Theatre Studio, Dartington Hall, circa 1935. Photographs courtesy ofThe Dartington Hall Trust}

Designers & Makers

Gerald Summers

British 1899 - 1967

Gordon Russell and 42 Upper Brook Street

The six chairs designed and manufactured by Gordon Russell Ltd. in collaboration with Ernest Brander Musman have an equally revealing history. The design originated in the clubroom of the Ace of Spades roadhouse on the Kingston By-Pass, where Musman’s architecture and Russell’s furnishings contributed to a thoroughly contemporary setting for leisure. Advertised by Gordon Russell in the June 1933 issue of Design for To-Day, the chair can also be identified in period photographs and surviving British Pathé footage of the building.

The Elmhirsts selected examples for the dining room of their remodelled London home. They appear in the December 1934 feature on 42 Upper Brook Street in Architecture Illustrated, recording their place within Chermayeff’s interior.

Subsequently transferred to Dartington Hall, the chairs connect the couple’s metropolitan life with their wider undertaking in Devon. Their choice also shows how readily a design developed for a public clubroom could find a place in a carefully considered private interior.

Together, these works reveal the discernment behind the Elmhirsts’ patronage. They recognised the achievements of designers working in different settings and gave their furniture a place in their own lives. The surviving photographs are especially compelling in this respect: they show the objects in the rooms for which the Elmhirsts chose them, as part of a lived environment. The furniture retains a direct connection to the people and places through which modern design took root in Britain.

^{Illustrated below: 41-42 Upper Brook Street by Stephen Richards,}^{CC BY-SA 2.0}^{, via Wikimedia Commons | Chairs by Ernest Brander Musman for Gordon Russell on display in the Elmhirst’s London home, appearing in Architecture Illustrated, 1934. Photograph courtesy ofThe Dartington Hall Trust}

Designers & Makers

Gordon Russell

British 1892-1980

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Philip Smith

Director, Head of Modern & Post-War Art & Design

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The Elmhirsts and the Art of Modern Living

Discover our Private Collections Department

Building a Modern Community at Dartington Hall

Gerald Summers and the Chekhov Theatre Studio

Gerald Summers

Gordon Russell and 42 Upper Brook Street

Gordon Russell

Philip Smith

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