Marianne Straub
http://seamsandstitches.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/7db10cf0-a3b1-4804-8eda4e0b66a5534d_3_0.jpg
http://seamsandstitches.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/marianne-straub/
http://www.exacteditions.com/read/selvedge/issue-22-3586/87/3
hand weaving and cloth designer
Dr Marianne Straub RDI
1909 – 1992
Marianne Straub was born in the village of Amriswil, Switzerland,
where her father was a textile merchant. Straub went on to study Art
at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zürich where she devoted her second
and third years at the college to hand weaving and
textiles.
Determined to master her craft, in 1932 Straub moved to
the textile town of Bradford, England, and began studying her trade
at the Bradford Technical College. After finishing her course, she was
invited to work at Ethel Mairet’s Gospels studio at Ditchling where
she further developed her hand loom techniques.
By the mid
1930s Straub was working as a consultant designer for the Welsh
milling industry where she learnt about mass production of textiles.
In 1937 she joined the firm of Helios as head designer where she
developed a range of woven and printed fabrics based on her own
designs, before moving to the firm of Warners based in Braintree,
Essex, in 1950.
Through out the 1950s Straub was closely
associated with the north Essex village of Great Bardfield, which
became famous for its small community of talented artists, amongst
them Edward Bawden. Organising a series of large “open house”
exhibitions the Great Bardfield Artists attracted national press
attention and thousands of visitors to the remote village during the
summer exhibitions of 1954, 1955 and 1958. On her retirement from
Warners in 1971, Straub left Great Bardfield and moved to
Cambridge.
As well as her design work, Straub was also an
important textile teacher, having begun teaching at the Central
School of Art, London in 1956. She later taught at Hornsey College of
Art before moving on to the Royal College of Art, both in
London.
Straub wrote a book entitled Hand Weaving and Cloth
Design, Viking 1977, and in 1972 was awarded the distinction Royal
Designer for Industry (RDI).
Dr Marianne Straub RDI
Sir Misha Black Medal-----http://www.mishablackawards.org.uk/medal/straub-rdi
Textile Designer (1909-1994)
Born in Amriswill, Switzerland, 23 September 1909, Straub studied weaving at
the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich, (1928-31). She then completed her technical
training at Bradford Technical College, (1932-33).
After leaving Bradford, Straub worked briefly for Ethel Mairet in her handweaving
workshop in Ditchling, Sussex and the two maintained a friendship from then on.
In 1934, Straub was employed as a consultant designer for the Rural Industries
Bureau in Wales. In 1937, she became head designer at Helios, an independent
subsiduary of the Lancashire firm Barlow & Jones Ltd, where she remained until
1950. In 1951, Straub was actively involved in the Festival of Britain and provided
fabrics for the Regatta Restaurant, at the Festival’s South Bank site in London.
Several fabrics designed by Straub for Warners, including Broadstairs, were
commissioned by Misha Black of DRU, mainly for use in the interiors of ships,
such as the SS ‘Oriana’ in 1960. According to Lesley Jackson, Straub became
known for her ‘enlarged, free form organic pattern’, (Jackson, 2007) In 1964, she
designed upholstery fabric, which was later used on the Piccadilly Line and on
London Transport buses. Straub taught at many UK art colleges including
Brighton, Huddersfield and Liverpool during the 1960s. In 1972 she was made
Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) by the RSA and awarded the Sir Misha Black
medal in 1993. She was a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and
Designers (SIAD).
Ethel Mairet died on 8 November 1994.
http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/collections/designarchives/projects/women-designers/dr-marianne-straub
http://books.google.com/books?id=aj8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA83&lpg=PA83&dq=marianne+straub&s
ource=bl&ots=OyBVy0gcHo&sig=JFZVOgtHNwpHqbVpA3
u3ZR9P6gI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VuJUbHbNaj9iwKDkoGgAg&ved=0CHgQ6AEwDw#v=onep
age&q=marianne%20straub&f=false