textiles


home		             

good
house
keeping

the
new
look

tableware

home		             

good
house
keeping

the
new
look

tableware
 

 

influences                                                INFLUENCES

 
By the early 1950 Sweden, Finland, Italy and the USA had emerged as the leaders in design. By the end of the decade the New Look in abstract decoration had reached almost everyone's home, whether in the form of a formica-topped table, kitchen curtain, living room wallpaper or bathroom linoleum.

"Calyx" created by the British designer Lucienne Day and produced for Heal's as a printed linen in 1951, was judged best textile on the American Market in 1952. The cupped shape and spindly lines of this textile became hallmarks of 1950s pattern design.
 
 From left to right: Fabric "Calyx", Designer Lucienne Day; Fabric, Designer Eduardo Paolozzi; Wallpaper "Malino" Designer Willy Herrmann studio; Fabric "Painted Vases" Designer Willy Herrmann studio; Screenprint on cotton Designer (Attrib.) Ashley Havinden.


 

 
 
 
 
The New Look arrived in two distinct waves. The first, organic modernism, took sculpture as its primary source of inspiration and affected shapes of 3-dimensional design and architecture. The second wave transformed patterns, and reflected the influence of recent developments in abstract painting on the decoration of textiles, wallpapers and ceramics. Pattern design in the early years of the 1950s was strongly influenced by such artists as Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Joan Miro and Jackson Pollock, with graphic devices such as the elliptical forms of Calder, the palette motif and the colours of Matisse found in textiles and furniture.

From left to right: Henri Matisse; Jackson Pollock; Pablo Picasso; Joan Miro; Alexander Calder.