An Interesting c.1950s Yew Coffee Table

An interesting designed yew coffee table of the 1950s by Reynolds of Ludlow. Makers name in the underneath. Reynolds of Ludlow was set up by Arthur Basil Reynolds in Ludlow between 1946 and 1980. The original name of this company being Reynolds Woodware Limited, this was changed to Reynolds of Ludlow in the early 1950s for marketing reasons, although the original name remained the official Limited name. Initially set up with four cabinetmakers having equal shares, by the time his son Garth Reynolds took over in 1960, Arthur Reynolds had bought them out. The plan was to design produce and market the furniture as a single operation. The Arts and Crafts principles can clearly be seen in the grain of the wood as decoration, truth to materials in the use of the wood, the design being fit for its purpose without any inappropriate features or decoration. However there is a clear difference between Arthur Reynolds and Garth Reynolds in the market climate they were operating in, which affected Garth Reynolds’s style of design, which was moving away from strict adherence to the Arts and Crafts ideals through necessity. Whilst Garth Reynolds and his father designed contemporary furniture to keep up with fashion there were a number of difficulties with this design led approach. The constant changing of taste stimulating the designer to satisfy the consumer was an issue for Garth Reynolds and was less apparent for his father with the pressures this created on production and distribution.