Frank Lloyd Wright might be best known as one of most revered American architects of entire 20th century – he pioneered the Prairie Style, along with ‘organic architecture’ designed in harmony with nature, and cutting-edge icons including New York City’s Guggenheim Museum. But perhaps less well known is his brief foray into textile and wallpaper…
Category Archives: TEXTILE DESIGN
Artist, designer and thinker, Josef Frank was an outspoken pioneer, whose practice spanned diverse disciplines, including art, architecture and textiles. In his textile and embroidery work he broke away from the simplicity of modernism with fluid, organic repeat patterns designed entirely by hand, featuring swirling flora and fauna in bold, Matisse-like motifs and intensely vivid…
Contemporary textile designer Lisa King makes striking prints which are an eclectic blend of influences, from the lush plant life of her childhood in Thailand to her mother’s vibrant collection of textiles and antiquities, her background training as a dancer, and her current life in industrialised London. She says, “I draw a lot of parallels…
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…
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…
“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…
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…
“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,…
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,…
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…
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…
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