Cathy's Art Diary

Colourful and surprising exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the textile designs of the sisters Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell. I say surprising because I hadn't realised how popular their work was and how much of it I had owned or remembered. I had bought a painting by them at an exhibition at the National Theatre a number of years ago without really knowing that much about them. The show highlighted how they not only designed the patterns but oversaw how these designs were transferred to the textile allowing them to control the colours and retain the copyright of the design. The designs were hand painted and in many cases the show had the original painting and examples of the textile in different colour way. The sisters worked for Liberty in the 1970s and designed Bauhaus for them which I recognised. Later in the decade they worked for Terence Conran at Habitat and those designed were so familiar to me. The show looked at how they adapted to the mar...

Colourful exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the work that these sister designers did for Liberty in the 1960s and 70s to accompany their Liberty in Fashion exhibition. I keep coming across these designers and bought a sketch for a design by them at a show at the National Theatre a few years ago which proudly hangs opposite my bed. This show had a nice mix of display cabinet cabinets with archive material in, articles and ideas of influences alongside mood boards showing the material along with hand painted designs in a big patchwork display. I loved the sections which showed different colour ways for a pattern. I’m always amazed at how different a pattern can look in a different colour. Closes on 28 February 2016

Interesting   display at the fashion and Textile Museum looking at recent designs for textiles by Sarah Campbell. Sarah Campbell worked with her sister Susan Collier for many years but following her sister’s death in 2011 has begun a solo career. The display looked at how she develops her ideas showing inspirations, sketches, swatches and pictures of finished products on single display boards. I will look out for her designs for M&S bed linen as I have a small Collier Campbell study for material in my bedroom which I bought at a retrospective of their work at the National Theatre. It would seem appropriate to show it with some Sarah Campbell bed linen!