Although Henry Moore is a very recognisable figure in modern sculpture, few people realise that at the close of the Second World War he also made a large number of textile designs and fabrics. In the early 1940’s at the instigation of Zika Ascher, a Czech manufacturer who came to Britain as an exile in 1939, he filled four sketchbooks with ideas for this purpose. Between 1944 and 1947, Ascher commissioned several leading artists including Moore, Henri Matisse, Ivon Hitchens and Jean Cocteau, to produce designs for silk squares which were intended to liven up the post-war wardrobe. In line with his socialist approach to integrating art with daily life, Moore used bold, bright colours to create ideas for the squares, as well as for dress and upholstery fabrics. More than twenty of his designs were eventually used by Ascher and printed on a variety of fabrics including silk, parachute nylon, cotton and rayon, sometimes in as many as twenty different colourways.
This exhibition was on in the barn, I managed to sneak some Guerrilla shots.
What a fantastic exhibition, the fabrics still look modern all be it retro style. I also enjoyed not only the sketchbooks but the juxtaposition of small maquettes with his work in the display cases.
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