Seeing Lucienne Day’s prints at the Sanderson exhibition reminded me of the legacy she has left behind. Her designs for them such as ‘Nautlaus’ and her revolutionary print ‘Calyx’, created as part of the Festival of Britain, set her on the path to becoming one of our most sought-after textiles designers with a clear and distinctive visual style of her own. Often compared to their contemporaries Charles and Ray Eames, they did share some similarities but with one fundamental difference – the Eames’ often designed as a team whereas the Days usually worked independently in separate fields.
Rig by Lucienne Day for Heals Ltd., 1953
As well as Sanderson, from the 1950s onwards Lucienne Day had a whole range of successful collaborations including those with Liberty, Habitat, John Lewis Partnership, Rosenthal and Heal’s with whom she worked for 20 years, creating more than 70 patterns. It was a boom time for freelance designers and pattern was popular so she produced a prolific amount of work – textiles, carpets, ceramics, wallpapers – linking mass production and fine art.
Read more about Lucienne’s legacy at Design Museum.org
Sadly Lucienne Day passed away at the start of this year but with the timeless quality of her work, her importance and influence as a designer surely she will always be a role model.
Lucienne Day London 1997 by Anne-Katrin Purkiss
You can still buy her work from classictextiles.com
Posted in design
