Woodcut Patterns

One of the most interesting things about British art in the 1920s was the blurred distinction that arose between art and design. This can be seen in all kinds of areas, from textiles to advertising to architecture. In the field of pattern papers, the Curwen Press was at the forefront, commissioning designs from artists such as Edward Bawden, Margaret Calkin James, Claude Lovat Fraser, Albert Rutherston, Enid Marx, and Eric Ravilious. Curwen were so proud of these papers that in 1928 they published the delicious A Specimen Book of Pattern Papers Designed for and in Use at the Curwen Press, with an Introduction by Paul Nash. I don't, sadly, have a copy of this extremely rare and costly publication. But I do have a copy of The Woodcut: An Annual for 1927. Like the Specimen Book, this was printed at Curwen and published by the Fleuron. And it contains an essay by Paul Nash (identical with the introduction? I'm not sure, but probably) entitled Woodcut Patterns. It is illustrated with two tipped-in colour samples, one by Enid Marx, the other by Eric Ravilious, while the boards of the journal itself are covered with a design by Nash.

Paul Nash, Wood engraved design for the cover of The Woodcut, 1927

Paul Nash writes that, "I have become lately more interested in woodcut patterns than in woodcut pictures. It is always a relief to be rid of the responsibility of representation. To concern oneself solely with the problem of formal relationships is to escape into a new world. Here one is in touch with pure reality..."

Eric Ravilious, Wood engraved pattern paper for the Curwen Press
from The Woodcut, 1927

Nash considers block printing on textiles, including not just wood blocks but also the fabrics decorated with linocut designs being produced under the name Footprints at the Hammersmith workshop established by Celandine Kennington to supply Elspeth Little's shop Modern Textiles. He also discusses block-printed wallpapers (noting that in France fine artists such as Marie Laurencin and Raoul Dufy have "produced some charming designs"), and paper covers for books.

Enid Marx, Wood engraved pattern paper for the Curwen Press
from The Woodcut, 1927

In the field of textiles printed from wood blocks, Paul Nash singles out Phyllis Barron ("a true artist as well as a craftswoman) and her two colleagues Dorothy Larcher and Enid Marx. Marx was only just launched on her distinguished career as a designer, having failed her diploma at the Royal College of Art because of her allegiance to abstraction. Of her work Paul Nash writes, "Miss Marx's designs have the character of a fugue in music. Another quality which distinguishes them from the majority of textile designs is the peculiarly rigid movement of the units, which are not conceived in fluid waves or undulations, or as an efflorescence, but are more like the delicate architecture of birds, building with rather awkward shaped sticks."

Enid Marx, Wood engraved pattern paper for Chatto and Windus
from Signature, 1936

Enid Marx, Wood engraved pattern paper for the Curwen Press
from Signature, 1936

His conclusion is that, "we should begin to consider patterns as important as pictures."

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