One of the most fascinating periods in art history, the Romanticist era of 19th century Europe and the United States opened the floodgate to new and unchartered realms of expression. Artists drifted away from reality into the fantastical, irrational wonders of the imagination, envisioning scenes filled with perilous danger, sublime beauty, and erotic seduction. Fabric…
All posts by Rosie Lesso
FROST GRAY’s steely metallic shade became cold light in Russian master Valentin Serov’s stirring portraits, illuminating the space around his sitters with the frosty air of Russia. Leader in the Russian Impressionist movement, pale exterior light was a vital component in Serov’s art, breaking through unseen windows to colour the interior walls, furniture and clothes…
Fabric is one of art history’s most iconic and enduring motifs, draping, flapping or drifting through many of the best-known artworks of all time. Throughout the Renaissance period artistic portrayals of drapery were stretched in incredible new directions, illustrating just how evocative, expressive and emotive they could be, and setting the stage for centuries to…
19th century painter Alexei Savrasov portrayed stunning, Romanticised visions of the Russian landscape, capturing the sparkling freshness and icy air of winter when everything was obscured by layers and layers of snow. Sensitively attuned to the natural world at this time of year, he carefully observed how subtle shades of bluish grey like that of…
Polish artist and designer Sarah Lipska is an enigmatic figure, one whose life is only rarely written about in books and magazines. But hidden within the Met Museum in New York is a vast collection of samples from her embroidered textiles, each one adding an extra layer to the tapestry of her life. This collection…
A fresh, cold breeze seems to bristle through Russian painter Natalia Goncharova’s paintings, created through sharp, biting and invigorating colours like that of FEATHER Linen. Leader in the Russian 20th century avant-garde, Goncharova was wildly inventive and prolific, working across a huge range of styles, techniques and mediums to produce some of the most important…
“Form without colour is like a body without a soul”. Owen Jones was one of the most prolific and influential designers of the Victorian era, reinventing the ornate patterns and dazzling colours of the ancient world for a new era. A prolific polymath, his ideas spanned a huge range of fields including architecture, wallpaper, furniture,…
SILVER Linen’s quiet, blue-grey mirrors the softly diffused light of Claude Monet’s snow scenes, where land and sky are muffled by enormous puffs of cloud and snow. Subtle blue shadows fall across heaps of white snow and bristle through freezing tree branches or suggest rising storm clouds in the distant horizon, but they are a…
Leader in the Russian Constructivist movement of the early 20th century, Varvara Stepanova was a true radical, whose long and prolific career spanned many disciplines including painting, photography and design. Yet it was through textile production that she was able to live out her true life’s mission, to bring art out of the gallery space…
Zika and Lida Ascher were shape-shifting rulebreakers, who pushed the bounds of British fabric design in daring and unconventional new directions. Arriving in the UK at the outbreak of the Second World War, the young couple successfully redefined the bleak face of post-war British textiles throughout the 1940s with electrifying bursts of colour and life,…
ASH Linen’s cool, quiet tone became areas of peaceful respite in Edouard Vuillard’s intimate interiors, drenching private spaces in a mysterious and enigmatic light. Leader in the Parisian Intimiste movement of the early 20th century, Vuillard’s paintings focussed almost exclusively on private indoor spaces, painted with soothing colours to convey a quality of quiet isolation…
Russian designer Anna Andreeva made a remarkable contribution to textile history, looking to the future with designs based on radio waves, electricity, algorithms and op art. Much like her predecessors Lyubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova, Andreeva combined the playful, abstract geometry of Russian Constructivism with industrial manufacture, spreading her ideas far and wide for the…
LUNAR ROCK linen’s shimmering grey often appeared in American Impressionist Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones’ lively scenes, casting pockets of warm shadow amidst areas of colour and light. One of America’s most celebrated turn-of-the-century painters, Sparhawk-Jones portrayed ordinary urban scenes, from shoppers in department stores to children roller-skating and mothers in the park with wide brushstrokes and sparkling…
Lucienne Day was one of Britain’s foremost post-war designers, creating dazzling textiles that decorated almost every home across the country throughout the 1950s and beyond. Drawing on the English tradition for plant-based forms including flowers, grasses and seed heads, she went on to transform them into radical, abstracted repeat patterns, symbolising the regrowth of a…
Sand linen’s full bodied saffron yellow was a favourite with French painter Maurice de Vlaminck, setting his paintings alight with warm, iridescent flames of colour. Central to Vlaminck’s practice was the relationship between colours, which could express riotous outbursts of emotion, with his distinctive shade of mustard yellow playing a top note above the rest. Reflecting…
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