Oliver Percy BernardOBEMC (8 April 1881 – 15 April 1939)[1] was an English architect, andscenic,graphic andindustrial designer. He was instrumental in developing conservativeVictorian British taste in amodernist European direction; much of his work is frequently characterised asart deco.
Born inCamberwell, London, Bernard was the son of Charles Bernard, (d.1894), a theatre manager, and his wife, Annie Allen, an actress. Oliver Bernard experienced an unhappy childhood in London and, on the death of his father in 1894, left forManchester to take a job as a stage hand in a theatre. There, he took on his own education by readingJohn Locke,John Ruskin and others. He ultimately took a series of menial jobs at sea, before returning to London to take up scene painting withWalter Hann.
In 1905, Bernard went to New York to work as principal scenic artist forKlaw & Erlanger, and then as assistant artist at the newBoston Opera House in 1909.[2] He returned to London where he was resident scenic artist for the Grand Opera Syndicate Ltd., managers and lessees of theRoyal Opera House,Covent Garden.[3]
At the beginning ofWorld War I in 1914, Bernard was rejected for active military service owing to deafness. He became frustrated at his inability to serve in the war,[4] and by the conservatism of the London theatre.[3] He travelled to the Americas where he stayed for a short period before returning to England on theRMSLusitania in 1915; he survived its sinking.[3] After his rescue he completed a series of sketches which were published inThe Illustrated London News.[5] In 1916, he was commissioned into theRoyal Engineers as acamouflage officer, serving in France, Italy and Belgium, reaching the rank ofcaptain. For his services, he was awarded theMilitary Cross andOBE, respectively.[3]
In 1919, Bernard continued his theatrical work, designing sets for SirThomas Beecham'sRing Cycle at Covent Garden. By the 1920s, he began to display an interest in trade and industry, new materials and techniques and adopted a populist approach to decoration.[3] He became a consultant to theBoard of Overseas Trade, overhauling the lighting and stage management at the Admiralty Theatre of H. M. Government Pavilion at theBritish Empire Exhibition in 1924, where he also designed displays.[3][6] The following year, he became a consultant to the British government for theExposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris.[3]
Bernard was consultant artistic director toJ. Lyons and Co., defining much of their laterhouse style and designing interiors for theirOxford Street,Coventry Street, andStrand Corner Houses. In 1934 he remodelled the interiors of theRegent Palace Hotel, including the basement bars, restaurants, and the ground-floor coffee room, since named the Titanic Room[1] and worked on theCumberland Hotel in 1932.[3]
He designed parts of theStrand Palace Hotel's Foyer, and its revolving doors; the doors are now owned by The Victoria and Albert Museum.
Bernard wrote on design and architecture and championed the exploitation of engineering expertise. He worked on furniture design and, from the late 1930s, designed a number of industrial buildings, most notably theSupermarine works inSouthampton[7] and the IMCO building on Dublin's south coast built for a dry-cleaning firm, now since demolished.[8] He was involved in founding PEL (Practical Equipment Ltd) and designed the S.P.4 chair for them.[9][10]
Bernard's work and writing feature in a small number of anthology publications on architecture and designincluding Benton, Charlotte et al.Art Deco 1910–1939, (V&A Publications, 2003) andLe Corbusier and Britain: An Anthology, edited by Irena Murray and Julian Osley (Routledge, 2009). His IMCO building was the subject of a 2012 film by the Irish artist Gavin Murphy, and formed part of a subsequent publicationOn Seeing Only Totally New ThingsArchived 5 October 2014 at theWayback Machine, that also includes the first comprehensive and illustrated account of Bernard's life and work.[11]
His former secretary described him as "amusing, utterly impossible, kind, and a bully".[3]He was a cousin to the actorStanley Holloway[12] (Bernard's father Charles was a brother to Holloway's maternal grandmother), to Holloway's son, the actorJulian Holloway and Julian's daughter, the author and former modelSophie Dahl.[13]
Bernard was married twice; first to the singer Muriel Theresa Lightfoot in 1911 (the marriage dissolved in 1924) and then to Edith Dora Hodges (1896–1950), an opera singer whose stage name was Fedora Roselli, in 1924.[3] From this relationship, the couple had two daughters and three sons including the poet and translatorOliver Bernard who attended theWestminster School and later published a book of memoirs.[14][15] Bernard's two other sons wereBruce Bernard, a photographer andart critic andJeffrey Bernard who became a noted journalist.[3]
Bernard died unexpectedly ofperitonitis in London in 1939. Hisestate was valued at £2,950 at the time of his death[3] but he left his wife with heavy debts.[15] Despite this she managed to send their three sons toindependent schools.[15]
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