Ashley Havinden
1903 - 1973
Organic Abstract
1956, Screen Printed on Cotton
Sanderson & Son Ltd
107 x 93 cms
LITRATURE:
Austerity to Affluence, British Art & Design 1945 -1962, Merrell Holberton Publishers, 1997,
EXHIBITIONS:
Artists Textiles in Britain 1945 – 1970, The Fine Art Society, London, 2003.
Though issued by Sanderson in 1956 there is some question as to when the design was originally commissioned. The design is the organic modernist style of the late 1930s, particularly associated with the Mars Group – Edward McKnight Kauffer’s poster for a Mars Group Exhibition of 1938 is closely related. Of more direct significance is Ashley Havingden’s textile of 1937 for Edinburgh Weavers – Ashley’s Abstract. Many signature stylistic traits of Havingden’s are shared by these two textiles. The abstract designs contained within the 1956 textiles organic forms are so close to a series of abstract paintings & drawings of the late 1930s by Havingden that they appear to have been directly derived from them. Yet the design also echoes the Crystal Structure designs from the 1951 Festival of Britain’s Festival Pattern Group. Textiles actually used at the Festival itself were accurately based on atomic structures & accurate crystal structure designs.