Op artist Bridget Riley is a true icon of British art, whose daring and experimental ‘heat-haze’ patterns impacted a huge range of art movements including Pop Art, Minimalism, and Contemporary Art. But her influence also extended far beyond the art world, crossing over into the realms of graphics, architecture, and perhaps most prominently, fashion and…
Category Archives: PIONEERS
The weaving workshop at the Bauhaus was a hotbed of creative talent, where some of the most significant weavers and textile designers of the entire 20th century began their careers. Among their prestigious alumni are Anni Albers, Gunta Stolzl, Otti Berger, Marli Ehrman, Benita Otte and Margarete Koehler. Most women who applied to attend the…
Hidden within the wooded hills of Yamanashi in the shadows of Mount Fuji, Japan is a rare treasure trove: The Itchiku Kubota Art Museum, dedicated to the great Japanese master of textiles Itchiku Kubota (1917-2003). It was Kubota’s dream to open such a museum to house his vast archive of textile art, one that he…
Textile designer Celia Birtwell has made an indelible impact on British textiles, infusing them with her unique brand of vibrant, swirling and expressive patterns. She has led a remarkable life, playing a central role in defining the freewheeling optimism of the swinging sixties, and going on to develop a monumental legacy as one of the…
“My paintings are not about what is seen. They are about what is known forever in the mind.” Agnes Martin’s world is one of order and tranquillity, as minutely patterned grids and ruler straight bands expand across vast surfaces suggesting wide open space. Yet there is also sensitive musicality at play as lines tremble and…
Known collectively as the “first lady of weaving,” world-renowned German-American weaver Else Regensteiner was one of a generation who brought a Bauhaus sensibility for weaving-as-art into the American cultural landscape. As well as producing striking weavings that experimented with unconventional and unexpected patterns, colours and materials, she was also hugely influential as a teacher, writer…
From textiles to furniture, architecture, restaurants and book publishing, British designer Sir Terence Conran is one of the foremost figures of the late 20th century. A man of many talents, his simple, streamlined designs had widespread, mass appeal. Perhaps best known for founding the Habitat stores and penning the iconic 1970s lifestyle publication The House…
Textile designer Eddie Squires was a true innovator in his field, pushing the scope of printed patterns in a series of daring and bold new directions. As a key designer and director for the leading textile company Warner & Sons Ltd., Squires played an instrumental role in enlivening British textiles during the latter half of…
Enid Marx, also known as ‘Marco’, was one of the early 20th century’s most prolific and prodigiously talented designers, expanding her creative vision across a huge range of disciplines. From painting and printmaking to illustration and textiles, she spread her singular vision far and wide in a career spanning over 70 years. As a textile…
Contemporary artist Brent Wadden makes woven artworks that deftly blur the boundaries between textile and painting, proving the two disciplines aren’t so different after all. Stretched over canvas and hung on gallery walls, his boldly geometric textiles might first appear to be abstract paintings, but closer inspection reveals they are tightly woven by hand, lending…
New York based textile designer and artist Caroline Kaufman takes a free-wheeling, experimental approach to creating textiles, working in an improvisatory way to produce surprising and unexpected results. She is perhaps best known for her recent, wildly complex tufted textiles, which play with madcap colour schemes and zany patterns to produce functional rugs that look…
“No artistic success has given me such satisfaction as the sight of a peasant or a worker buying a length of material designed by me.” Liubov Popova Russian Constructivist Liubov Popova was a force of nature, expanding her creative ideas across painting, theatre set design and textiles. But many would say the bold, graphic power…
San Francisco based fibre artist Josh Faught makes visceral, tactile artworks that weave together multiple references: craft, sexuality, gender and queer politics. Working with weaving, knitting and crochet, his widely varied practice is almost always sculptural, whether hung onto the wall or strewn across wooden supports. While embracing traditional craft techniques, Faught also pushes his…
Playful, whimsical and naïve, the textile designs of Jacqueline Groag lit up postwar Britain, injecting homes, interiors and clothing with a renewed sense of vitality and optimism. Originally from Prague, Groag was the leading textile designer of the United Kingdom throughout the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, showcasing a vibrant new approach to textile design that…
In amongst the wild forests and fjords near the Nordic town of Rissa lies a small, hidden community: the Fosen Folk School. Part of Norway’s wider ‘folk high school’ pedagogy, the school takes an alternative approach to education, focussing on the development of practical, handcrafted skills for life rather than tests and grades. From tiny…
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