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Black Leaf.
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In my textile travels, I have had the joy and privilege of connecting with other like-minded folks, including Denver-based modern design aficionados Jill Wiltse and her husband, H. Kirk Brown III. Brown and Wiltse shared items from their collection of textiles to create the 2010 exhibit Art by the Yard: Women Design Midcentury Britain at the Textile Museum in Washington D.C. Fabric designs by Lucienne Day were featured in this exhibit, and Wiltse and Brown also made a documentary, Contemporary Days, about Day and her husband, industrial and furniture designer Robin Day. This excellent film is just one of a series celebrating modern architecture and design.
The documentary is well-researched and just delightful - luckily there is a lot of extant contemporary footage of both Robin and Lucienne. Their daughter Paula has obviously been a good steward of their legacy, in addition to establishing her own career as a garden designer.
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Bouquet Garni.
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Viewing the DVD prompted me to dig out my Lucienne Day kitchen towels. Day designed a number of towels in the late 1950's and early 1960's, and states in the film that she enjoyed this work, as when developing a towel motif she didn't have to worry about the "repeat". "Repeat" refers to taking a single motif and deploying it into a "repeated" continuous field on yardage. Today this can be accomplished digitally, but it used to be a time-consuming process.
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Too Many Cooks, lime colorway.
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The towel designs have the same wonderful sketchy graphic quality of many of Day's furnishing fabrics, as well as her distinctive use of color. Several of the designs were produced in multiple colorways on Irish linen.
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Too Many Cooks, purple colorway.
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Too Many Cooks, red colorway.
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Too Many Cooks, detail.
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Both Robin and Lucienne were recognized in their lifetimes with awards and commercial success. At least two of Lucienne's towel designs were celebrated by the British Design Centre.
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Provencal.
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Provencal, original stickers.
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Day produced at least nine designs for towels and several have been reproduced, under license, by a British company, twentytwentyone.
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Good Food, red colorway.
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Good Food, detail.
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Good Food, teal colorway.
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Good Food, detail.
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While Day's furnishing fabrics can be expensive on such sites as ebay, the towels provide a more affordable opportunity to own and enjoy work by a celebrated woman artist.
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Jack Sprat.
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