Conran Chequers
1951

Terence Conran designed, for David Whitehead and displayed at the Festival of Britain, screen printed by Rawtenstal, the white ground divided into an irregular graph with squares of red and grey, others empty and some with black repeat designs of lines and squiggles, 4ft x 2ft 10 in or 1.25 x 87 cm wide.

Comments

See: Peat, Alan David Whitehead Ltd. Artist Designed Textiles 1952-1969 p 13. This design was later used in 1957 by Conran for his Midwinter designed ceramics manufactured by W R Midwinter Ltd of Burslem. Conran was still a student at Central St Martins when he designed this fabric in 1949 for David Whitehead Ltd, who exhibited it at The Festival of Britain. The Festival promoted the most progressive of British design at a large exhibition on the South Bank of the Thames. A large number of David Whitehead's fabrics were chosen for the festival. Whiteheads was founded in 1815 by three brothers and David Whiteheads founded in 1927 as a subsidary company. Oriignally they produced awnings dyed ALizarine red, largely for the fairground market. Fabrics were conservative in character and the slump of the 30's and the WW2 curtailed production. In 1945 the chairman, made two important decisions which increased the production of the company. He decided to equip the mills with the most modern machinery they could buy, which gave the company the capacity to produce contemporary fabrics in volume. The second was the appointment in 1948 of John Murray, an architect with no previous textile training. Murray transformed the company's image by employing young artist designers to produce exciting and contemporary designs under the new trade name of David Whitehead Fabrics. Jacqueline Groag, Marian Mahler, John Piper, Roger Nicholson and Mitzi Cunliffe were all well known designers who worked for the company Conran produced designs for Whiteheads for a number of years and went on to set up Conran Fabrics with his wife Shirley.

Condition

Very good. Couple of very slight small marks.

Price: on request

Ref N°: 5308C