This superb collection of post-war textile designs by an anonymous hand falls firmly in the school of the innovative design work produced in England after the Second World War. Aided by post-war confidence and growth, designers created markedly contemporary, buoyant styles that elevated textile design to new heights. Women artists working in England in the 1950s were pivotal in this artistic revolution.
Taking influence from the Bauhaus, art schools in Britain were beginning to champion a shift in design away from craft to higher-status artistic work. In the early 1950s Eduardo Paolozzi was employed to teach Textile Design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, while the painter Alan Davie taught Industrial Design. Paolozzi's students in the early 1950s included the groundbreaking textile designer Althea McNish (1924–2020), to whose work some of the present designs bear resemblance.
The 1950s saw fresh and progressive designs that lifted public spirits and transformed the home, despite ongoing austerity and restrained colour palettes. Patterns and motifs were inspired by the bold abstract and biomorphic forms and saturated colour of artists such as Alexander Calder and Joan Miró, as well as being influenced by advances in science, technology and industrial design. The mid-century aesthetic marked a dramatic departure from England’s conventional notions of interior fabric design—of floral chintz and naturalistic forms—and its clean lines and abstract forms remain popular and influential today.
