Rare piece. If you want a sample of British Textile history this is an excellent example. It was designed in 1931 and printed shortly after at Painswick, Gloucestershire.
This can be hand sewn to calico stretched over a wooden picture stretcher and would look fantastic. It could either be hung as is or put behind perspex.
The price for this piece unmounted is £ 300 and £380 mounted up.
Carnac hand block printed furnishing linen by Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher, the natural coloured ground with red stylised repeat design, 9 in; 24 cm repeat. 16 1/2 x 20 in w; 42 x 51cm w,
Very very slightly marked on the right hand side, but once hung this hardly notices.
My thanks to Andy Horn of www.craftspace.co.uk for pointing out that the fabric is shown in the 1931 edition of the Decorative Arts Studio Yearbook. The silk version was in fact called Painswick Request photo of the DAS page. Phyllis Barron (19.3.1890-1964) revived the art of hand block printing as early as 1905. Barron's training as a painter (Slade) and knowledge of French peasant textiles led her to pursue natural dyes on unbleached linens, cottons, organdie and silk, producing muted colours. Block printers usually cover the block with a layer of fine wool known as flocking which gave an even overall colour to the print . Barron prefered not using the wool giving instead a dry, slightly bleached look. She also used a different gum as a thickening agent for the dye giving a mottled effect. In 1923 she was joined by painter Dorothy Larcher (1884-1952) who read that Barron needed an assistant. Having lived in India for a number of years where she observed dyeing and hand block printing techniques. Their patterns were either geometric or floral, printed in one colour, although two and three colours were used early in the 1930's. This design was based on a sketch of the stone carvings that appeared on pre-historic sites at Carnac in Brittany, France. Designs were generally made based on natural forms, rather than historical ones. B & L did not create work for the popular market nor were they interested in 1920's and 30's fashion trends. B & L fabrics were sold in the Omega Workshops and Ethel Mairet's shop, as well as thier own Park Hill, Hampstead studio. In 1930 they relocated to a house called Hambutts in Painswick, Gloucestershire on Barron's birthday, 19 March. Barron recalled driving from Northleach in a terrific snowstorm with no chains. By now, she recalled I was thirsting for more colours, and also for a really big, lovely indigo vat - partly also as a respite for the unpleasantness of nitric, but indigo has been the greatess thrill of my printing life. There were commissions for the Duke of Westminster's yacht The Flying Cloud and later for his houses in England and France; Curtaining for the Bishop's Throne at Winchester Cathedral; textiles for the new Fellow's Dining Room, Girton College, Cambridge. In 1928 Muriel Rose started the Little Gallery, Sloane Street, London where they held thier first exhibition. Designs at this tended to be copies of old fabrics and were dull and lifeless. Barron & Larcher were designing and printing textiles in the early English tradition.* * Orpin Gaylard, Marjorie Phyllis Barron. Dorothy Larcher Textile Designers and Block Printers p 32 The Journal of The Decorative Arts Society no 3, 1979. Powers, Alan Modern Block Printed Textiles,/i> p 32 Barron & Larcher's collection is now in Farnham, Surrey at The Craft Study Centre www.csu.ucreative.ac.uk
All images and text © meg-andrews.com 2021
