Chapman Pugh Modern Antiques

ABOUT US

Chapman Pugh Modern Antiques is based in the City of London and Royal Tunbridge Wells. It is run by Suzanne Pugh and Stephen Chapman.

We both love the worlds of antiques and historical design because they involve the discovery of new, often surprising, and sometimes unrecognised things.

Suzanne

Growing up in the ground-breaking 1970’s and 1980’s, Suzanne developed a great interest in Mid Century Modern designers and especially glorious Gordon Russell furniture, which her parents especially liked.

A Great Uncle with a beautiful Arts and Crafts Home on the River Thames also inspired Suzanne to become fascinated by this anti-industrial international movement that focussed on traditional craftsmanship, medieval, romantic or folk styles of decoration. William Morris, William Birch, Henry Cole, Richard Redgrave and Liberty’s Department Store in London are key influences. The root of Modern style – it led to another of Suzanne’s passions being the Art Nouveau and Art Deco epochs that developed out of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Suzanne has also been influenced by the counter cultural-movements of Punk Rock and the New Romantic era in the 1970s and 1980s which has led to a lifelong interest in contemporary music and film. Other influences include visiting the incredibly glamorous Biba Department Store in Kensington in the 1970s – the brainchild of fashion designer Barbara Hulanicki – which showcased an art deco interior reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Stephen

Stephen was brought up initially in Scotland in an arts and crafts house in Bearsden Glasgow designed by a student of Rennie Mackintosh. He was surrounded by a mix of arts and crafts furniture and William Morris materials and later, in England, post war 1950s and 1960s Scandinavian furniture which at the time was appreciated because of its clean and at the time very modern lines. This created a very comfortable and stylish environment. All these elements have remained an influence.

Stephen’s Francophile parents acquired a (dilapidated) 15^th century farm in the Vaucluse (previously occupied by the Resistance) in the early 1970s where he became interested in the very different world of Provençal furniture and design.

An interest in American design caused him to buy a number of American classic cars – mainly Cadillacs – and he has long been interested in American architecture from Mies van der Rohe of the Seagram Building in New York City and Barcelona chair to Frank Lloyd Wright and the amazing Fallingwater.

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