This is Jenny Frean RDI, the award-winning British textile designer.
I had the great pleasure of recording an interview with her last month about her life and work. It's a delightful story.
Here is a tiny sampling of her work.
To hear the interview click HERE.
I make no bones about this post: it’s a plug for my dear friend Georgina von Etzdorf. She is a wonderful textile designer – her use of silk jacquard, velvet and chiffon with vibrant swirls, diamonds and stars, plus splashes of emotional intensity, singles her out as special. She works the fabric into scarves, ties, gloves, dressing gowns, blouses, waistcoats, etc. Over the years, through her company GvE&Co, she has sprinkled her magic on everyone from rock stars to royalty, all falling in love with her creations. She has a natural intuition when it comes to colour combinations and employs them where others would fear to tread, with her stunning results attracting followers from around the world. In 1997 she was made an RSA Royal Designer for Industry.
The Malaga retreat
The combination of an economic downturn and misfortune forced GvE&Co to temporarily close. In recent years, Georgina has spent a lot of time at her farmhouse high in the hills above Malaga, Spain, reassessing her life and work. Inspired by the landscape and changing seasons, she has been consumed by painting. Out of this extended sojourn have come many new ideas.
In 2013, Georgia collaborated with fashion designer Margaret Howell to create a shirt. It was an interesting proposition to harness the relative calm of Howell and the exuberance of von Etzdorf. The result was not a shirt but an almost wartime, utilitarian, genderless, hardwearing work jacket (above) with subtle flashes of colour in the edge piping. Margaret Howell recalls:
“When Georgina came through the door of our studio clutching a packet of West Country biscuits and an old pyjama jacket, her face beaming, brimming with enthusiasm, I realised little had changed since I first met her at her degree show in 1977. I was impressed then by her colours and painterly approach.”
In 2017, von Etzdorf reconnected with her old creative partner Jonathan Docherty to re-energise GvE&Co with a new range of textile designs, which were applied to a limited range of exquisite products – from cushions and rugs to pillows and robes. And if you want to understand the sensual delights of wearing the most perfect silk, you can’t beat this review from GvE&Co fan Coco Campbell...
Coco, experiencing the silkiest of silky moments, twice over.
“My dressing gown is, without doubt, the singular most glorious piece of clothing I own. As well as floating around in it at any given opportunity at home, I also wear it out – leather belted as a dress. Any excuse to have that silk against my skin and to show off the stunning print and impossibly beautiful colours. I have never felt sexier than when wearing it. I have never had more flattering comments than when wearing it. It’s like discovering a delicious secret that makes me gasp and gives me nothing but joy.”
Cotton velvet cushions and woven wool rugs
What makes GvE&Co’s products so special is the stunning printing techniques, developed through continual experimentation over many years and always used on the most beautiful fabrics. Her new range is now available to see and purchase from the new GvE&Co website at the foot of this post.
Limited edition 'Poppy' giclee print -1977/1981
Here’s Georgina in a recent interview with Annabel Ross, broadcaster and creator of the blog ‘Messages from the Wild’ HERE.
And if you enjoyed that one, here’s a far longer recording made for my RDInsight series when I visited Georgina in Spain a few years ago. It’s a jolly good story about success and failure with a lot of laughs along the way, as there is always a sense of fun leaching below the surface with Georgina. To hear the interview, click HERE.
And for more information about GvE&Co here is the new website: click HERE.
I was rather surprised by the remarkable similarity between Orla Kiely's 'Stem' fabric, designed in 2000.
And Paule Vézelay's 'Composure' fabric (above) designed in 1967.
Paule Vézelay in 1984
The painter, sculptor, etcher and book illustrator Paule Vézelay was born and brought up in Bristol as Marjorie Watson-Williams. In 1911 she went to the Slade School of Fine Art but soon left finding it old hat and meaningless to her. She moved to Paris in 1926 and changed her name to Paule Vézelay, and submerged herself in abstraction. She joined the Société Abstraction-Création in 1934 and a friend of Hans Arp and his wife Sophie Taeuber-Arp, exhibiting with Arp and Wassily Kandinsky in Milan in 1938. At the outbreak of war in 1939 and to avoid internment by the Nazi's she returned to Bristol where she recorded bomb damage and barrage balloons. In the 1950s she designed textiles for a number of companies including Heal's. She continued to paint until her death in 1984.
Above Vézelay's abstract shapes and colour combinations from the 1950's.
And in a blatant imitation I spotted these garden deckchairs in Habitat. (below)
There is a wonderful little documentary film made in1984 where Paule Vézelay is interviewed by a very non-Assie sounding Germaine Greer (Link at foot of this post). Paule comes across and fiercely independent but with grace and modesty. She maintains the artists should never marry. I think she is right about that.
A Kiely cushion.
Meanwhile, Orla Kiely has built up an empire from one simple graphic shape (often referred to as 'iconic') by applying it to just about everything she can lay her hands on.
The Paule Vézelay fabric 'Variations', designed in 1954
On the other hand, Paule Vézelay worked every single day from the 1930s to her death in 1984, not long after the documentary was made. And it was only late in her life that was she recognised in the UK. She never made her fortune but her work was her life. She never stopped.
For the documentary click HERE
This is a post about the use of colour: that magical ability to build a varied palette of colours that can be harmoniously blended or conversely work violently against each other in order to create something special.
And in this year celebrating the anniversary of the women’s vote, this post is centred on women’s unique contribution to the world of colour.
I was struck by two recent articles on designers seemingly treading the same path in applying decorative patterns and colour to environmental spaces.
Camille Walala
Camille Walala started out as a textile designer. She now spends her time transforming environments with a vibrant mix of confrontational colours, patterns and shapes. She has done this on buildings in London, Sydney and New York, where her explosive mix of energetic colours blows people away. The work reflects the personality of this fast-talking, enthusiastic, self-publicising French national.
Morag Myerscough
Morag Myerscough. You could be forgiven for muddling up her work with Walala’s: it has exactly the same simple, bold dynamic in its use of patterns and colours. It is applied to buildings and temporary structures and is much loved by children. She was selected to design one of the first exhibitions at the London Design Museum’s new home in 2016.
This got me thinking about the earlier trailblazers of the use of colour. Some well known and some not so.
The Amish
The Amish community formed in the United States in the 18th century. They developed an astonishingly sophisticated use of colour and design in the making of their quilts. The sheer beauty of every segment of their quilts is profoundly moving. They adhere to community-sanctioned colours and styles. So one could say that they are an example of a committee decision. But what a remarkable committee.
Lyubov Popova
Lyubov Popova (1889–1924) was a leading figure in early 20th-century Russian avant-garde abstract art. She came to prominence prior to the Revolution in 1917, producing her own approach in the Cubo-futurist style. Later she turned her hand to textile and theatre design. Along with her paintings, she left behind a substantial body of work. She died at the height of her artistic powers, two days after the death of her son, from whom she had contracted scarlet fever.
Sonia Delaunay
Ukrainian-born French artist Sonia Delaunay (1885 - 1979) spent most of her working life in Paris, where she collaborated with her husband Robert Delaunay to cofounded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes.
Her exuberant work embraced textiles, tableware, jewellery and even the decoration of a sports car.
She died in Paris in 1979 aged 94 and was buried next to her husband.
Carmen Herrera
Carmen Herrera was born in Havana in 1915. Now at an amazing 103, she has spent a lifetime working with colour. Her abstract, minimalist paintings have had international recognition. She has lived and worked in New York City since the 1950s.
Sister Corita Kent
Corita Kent (1918 - 1986). With thanks to reader Luke Tonge for bringing Corita to my attention.
As you can see from her photograph, sartorially speaking, she was strictly black and white. But outside of that, she exuded colour from every pour. She was a Roman Catholic nun, artist, educator and social activist.
She taught herself silkscreen printing and so began a deluge of hand-lettered and written messages centring on love and peace, much enjoy during America's social change in the 1960's and 70's.
After being diagnosed with cancer in the mid 70's there was an unstoppable urgency in her work.
Her largest environmental piece was rainbow swashes applied to a 150-foot (46 m) high natural gas tank in Boston. She also designed a special Love stamp for the United States Postal Service in 1985.
Yayoi Kusama
The flamboyant Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, born in 1929, is one of the wildest painters of colour working today and at 89 shows no sign of stopping. Over the years, there have been major retrospectives of her work held at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, Tate Modern and the Hirshhorn Museum. Her work changes hands for millions of dollars. One recently reached $5.1 million at a Christie’s sale – at the time the record price paid for a work by a living female artist.
Lucienne Day
Lucienne Day (1917–2010) was famous for her abstract pattern-making in the grim days of post-war Britain and was featured at the 1951 ‘Festival of Britain’, where her optimistic designs lifted the spirits of the many visitors. A large number of her textile designs are still in print today. Later in life, she designed wall hangings like those below.
Ray Eames
Ray Eames (1912–1988), an American artist and designer responsible for groundbreaking contributions in the fields of furniture design, textile design and industrial design, was born in Sacramento, California. She worked with Harry Bertoia, Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames and others on the display panels for the exhibition ‘Organic Design in Home Furnishings’ at the Museum of Modern Art. She married Charles Eames in 1941, settling in Los Angeles, California, where they began an outstanding career in design and architecture. Examples of Ray’s work can be seen below.
Bridget Riley
The wonderful Bridget Riley is internationally accepted as the high priestess of Op-art. She studied at Goldsmiths College and then at the Royal College of Art in the 1950s. In the 1960s, she evolved her now recognisable style by exploring dynamic, optically disorienting forms in both monochrome and a myriad of colours. In the late 1990s, I spent a memorable afternoon with Bridget at her Holland Park studio. I had commissioned her to design a Royal Mail stamp. She had created eight variations of vertically striped designs. She sat me down with a cup of coffee and went into detail about the importance of black in the designs. She described it as the visual ‘event’ in the work.
Maija Sofia Isola
Maija Sofia Isola (1927– 2001) was a Finnish textile designer responsible for over 500 patterns. Her most famous for Marimekko was ‘poppy’ from the 1960s. The simple, bold, colourful designs that she designed for the home are still as popular today.
Pia Camil
Pia Camil, a Mexico-based artist, is a more recent exponent of colour. In recent years, she has produced many wonderfully coloured hangings, taking inspiration from the Mexican urban landscape. Her work has been exhibited in many galleries and art institutions around the world.
Recent Comments