Inventive and fearless, British designer Lucienne Day emerged as a major visionary of mid-century design, creating a range of textiles that brilliantly wove together influences from nature and the changing artistic currents of the era, from Alexander Calder to Abstract Expressionism. Day proudly pioneered what became known as the “Contemporary” style, doing away with precedent to create something that was not only wholly new, but also appealed to mass audiences. As Design magazine’s Paul Reilly once commented on a host of designs that Day created for British Celanese, “These patterns are not stepping stones bridging the gulf between the historical and the contemporary, nor half-way houses between the traditional and the experimental. They are boldly original and advanced.”
“These patterns are not stepping stones bridging the gulf between the historical and the contemporary, nor half-way houses between the traditional and the experimental. They are boldly original and advanced.”
Day’s interest in printed textiles emerged early, when she was just was a 17-year-old student at the Croydon School of Art. She would go on to specialize in textile design at the Royal College of Art from 1937 to 1940 and, in 1942, she married the furniture designer Robin Day. Together, the Days made a formidable pair; indeed, Lucienne’s most famous design, Calyx, was created as a furnishing fabric for an interior designed by her husband for the 1951 Festival of Britain. Hand screen-printed on linen, Calyx’s abstract pattern reflected the Modernist influence of Alexander Calder and Paul Klee and set the stage for Day’s ongoing aesthetic dialogue with the world of fine art.
Lucienne Day, Calyx, Heal's Fabrics, 1951
After winning multiple accolades for Calyx, including the Gold Medal at the 1951 Milan Triennale, Day and her fresh approach—which would come to be widely emulated under the banner of the “Contemporary” style— were in demand. She was commissioned for up to six new designs annually with Heal’s Wholesale and Export, and the partnership of more than two decades would give Day the freedom and resources to create some of her most well-known and celebrated textiles. Among the early-career designs for Heal’s represented in this collection are Spectators (1953), Ticker Tape (1953), Trio (1954), Herb Antony (1956), and Script (1956).
Lucienne Day, Cadenza, Heal's Fabrics, 1962
Spanning her tenure at Heal’s, Day was able to explore and build upon her dual fascinations with abstraction and nature. Works like Ducatoon (1959) and Credenza (1962) effectively channeled the burgeoning abstract movement, landing somewhere between the rough edges of Abstract Expressionism and the repetitive geometries of Op Art. (She would later delve further into the hard lines of Op Art with works like the colorful 1970 Helix.) Designs such as Sequoia (1959) and Larch (1961) explicitly named the trees that Day’s bold, dark patterns referenced, while also meeting the moment’s desire for intense, full-width fabrics to accommodate tall picture windows. Softer, more delicate references to nature in the form of flora can be found in such Day patterns for Heal’s including Flower Show (1954), Halcyon (1960), Linden (1960), or the significantly Pop-ier, Flower Power-inflected High Noon (1965). Recognizing the growing international influence of their lead designer, Heal’s mounted the exhibition Lucienne Day – Designs at Home and Abroad in the summer of 1958.
Lucienne Day, Larch, Heal's Fabrics, 1961
Heal’s was not Day’s only client throughout her career; she also took on important commissions with British Celanese, Edinburgh Weavers, and Liberty’s, among other projects—including, for the latter, designing the Tudor Rose for England’s 1953 Coronation. For British Celanese, she created Climbing Trees (1953), which showcases the designer’s famed propensities for both abstracting natural forms and for fine, spindly linework. For Thomas Somerset & Co., Day ventured into devising patterns for tea towels, such as the Bouquet Garni tea towel (1959), the Batterie de Cuisine tea towel (1961), and the charming, beloved Too Many Cooks tea towel (1959), which received the prestigious Design Centre Award in 1960.
Lucienne Day, Too Many Cooks tea towels, Thomas Somerset & Co., 1959 / c. 1960
“Laughter is never more than a couple of remarks away, and [Day] speaks of her achievements with a buoyant freedom from care.”
Though she remained a committed and highly successful textile designer throughout her career, Day was adventurous in exploring other areas of design: not only did she create patterns for a range of fabrics, from her favored linen and cotton to the less-expensive and more market friendly rayon taffeta, she also worked in ceramics, carpets, and wallpaper. A perfectionist and problem-solver at heart, Day managed to design with the utmost integrity while infusing her work with the dynamic lightheartedness that endeared her vision of the Contemporary style to so many. As one writer for House & Garden remarked of Day, “Laughter is never more than a couple of remarks away, and she speaks of her achievements with a buoyant freedom from care.”
Source
Robin & Lucienne Day, Pioneers of Modern Design, Lesley Jackson
