You don’t find an exhibition of British textiles every day in Denver. In fact, it will probably be quite a few years before another one comes along.
And that’s point. Art galleries need to keep their offerings varied, throwing in a few surprises now and then, and that’s exactly what the Philip J. Steele Gallery has done.
The art space at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design is presenting concurrent shows featuring works by two of the preeminent British textile designers of the 1940s and ’50s – Zika Ascher (1910-1992) and Lucienne Day (1917- ).
Such selections might not sound like scintillating viewing at first blush, but it’s important to realize that these pieces are anything but musty floral patterns or the like.
Day created bold, innovative abstract designs in the 1950s that are every bit as exciting as many paintings from that era, and Ascher worked with many of the top artists of the 1940s, including Alexander Calder, Henri Matisse and Henry Moore.
To fully appreciate these works, it is important to understand the context from which they emerged. In World War II England, a break in production in many fabrics led to what one writer has described as a kind of “prolonged drabness.”
Among the first designers to challenge this sameness were two Czech émigrés, Zika and Lida Ascher, who established their own workshop, Ascher (London) Ltd. in 1942.
Because there were fewer restrictions on dress fabrics than those for draperies and other domestic uses, the Aschers focused on the former, using mainly screenprinting to create lively patterns of spots, stripes and checks.
In 1946, Zika Ascher conceived the idea of inviting a group of top European artists to work with him in designing and producing limited editions of scarf designs or “artist squares,” as he called them.
Eighteen rarely seen examples of these scarves plus a dress, with fabric designed by Ascher and artist Christian Bérard, are on view in an exhibition titled “Fashion Art: Ascher Scarves from Post-War England.”
The works are drawn from the collection of Jill A. Wiltse and H. Kirk Brown III of Denver, the same couple whose other holdings were shown last year in “Treasures Revealed: The Art of Hungary 1890-1956” at the Emmanuel Gallery.
The scarves show an unexpected range of styles, from the loosely rendered figuration of Pedro Flores’ colorful “Contrabandier (Smuggler)” (1947) to the chocolate-brown cutouts of Matisse in “Écharpe (Scarf)” (1947).
The artists couldn’t create a standard composition. Instead, with Ascher’s help, they had to conceive designs that would function when folded and worn. Oscar Dominguez capitalized on this in “Le Jour et la Nuit (Night and Day)” (1947), with an interlocking central motif symbolizing the split between the day’s two halves.
Some of these scarves were exhibited at the famed 1951 Festival of Britain, the same event where Day, an emerging designer caused a stir with a fabric pattern titled “Calyx.” She created it for a room setting created by her husband, Robin Day, who also became an important designer.
In her book, “Twentieth-Century Pattern Design,” Lesley Jackson describes “Calyx” as nothing short of revolutionary. She writes that Day went on to become “the most successful and sought-after pattern designer of the 1950s.”
Samples of 23 of the designer’s fabrics, also from Wiltse and Brown’s collection, can be seen in “Lucienne Day: The Queen of 1950’s British Textile Design,” including “Calyx” and many of her most famous patterns.
While some of her designs, such as “Fall,” were inspired by nature, others draw on artists at work during the period. Joan Miró’s surrealist inventions echo in Day’s “Small Hours” and it’s hard to see “Miscellany” without thinking of the pictographs of Adolph Gottlieb.
If most of the works are abstract or at least semi-abstract, Day did not object to a representational turn here or there, such as her best-selling dish towel, “Too Many Cooks” (1959), with light-hearted rows of aproned women.
Day’s patterns, fresh and appealing as ever, are vibrant and assertive without ever becoming distracting or overbearing. As a designer working for the mass market, she understood the need for pleasing fabrics that buyers would continue to enjoy day after day.
1940s and ’50s British Textiles
DESIGN EXHIBITIONS|Two concurrent presentations: “Fashion Art: Ascher Scarves from Post-War England” and “Lucienne Day: The Queen of 1950’s British Textile Design”|Philip J. Steele Gallery, Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, 1600 Pierce St., Lakewood|FREE|Noon to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays; through Feb. 3; 303-753-6046 or rmcad.edu.
