Something Fresher-essay

SOMETHING FRESHER 
An Introduction to the 1950s Textiles of Mary White 
by Ruth Marler
dedicated to the memory of Claude Dening, husband of Mary White

see Mary White's 1950s designs

".they made thousands of people discontented with the run of the mill conventional designs; they opened the eyes of a new generation to the possibilities of colour and pattern..... few of us would really go back to the old stereotyped flower pieces and stale Jacobean prints. We have tasted something fresher and the taste is still with us..."

This essay has come about because of a chance jumble sale purchase of a pair of curtains that I instinctively knew dated from the 1950s. They stood out as being "something fresher" and unlike many curtains that bear no identifying marks, the selvedge of these stated "Cottage Garden by Mary White". [see sample of Cottage Garden fabric]

Great Britain is privileged to have had, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, for almost one hundred and fifty years, a repository of information for the study of decorative arts and design. It came as no surprise then, to discover that the textile department at the V & A held several examples of furnishing fabrics by Mary White and that the National Art Library, housed in the V & A, held a "Mary White" information file. However, consultation of this information file revealed that the person concerned was a ceramicist and calligrapher, rather than a textile designer. What emerged as a result of preliminary enquiries, about Mary White, was the paucity of information about lesser known designers, in particular, women. Much work has been done in recent years to rescue women in the design world from either anonymity or the shadow cast over them by male designers to whom they were quite often related or married. Authors such as Isabelle Anscombe, and Judy Attfield and Pat Kirkham have done much to "rescue" designers such as Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh and Marion Dorn from the patriarchal shield of their male partners. However, it would appear that even those female designers, from the nineteen fifties, whose names are still recognised today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, are the ones who have a close connection to a male designer. The question that emerges is whether Mary White's anonymity is due to her lack of connections in the design world, her inability to design more than a few textiles of any merit or whether other factors caused her to remove herself from the world of textile design and thus caused her absence from the visible history of twentieth century textile design.

References to Mary White appear to occur only between the years 1953 and 1956. Eleven designs, by five different manufacturers were identified as being by her, either from textiles in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and The Whitworth Gallery, Manchester or from contemporary 1950s press reports. Six of these fabrics were produced by Heals, two for Edinburgh Weavers and one each for Libertys, David Whitehead and Turnbull & Stockdale. The Circulating Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum collected fabrics by her from the dates 1953-1956, the earliest being Ambleside dated 1953 and made for Heals and the latest in their collection being: Cottage Garden; Oberon; Bizarre all collected in 1956. Although newspaper articles in 1955 refer to her as Mary White M.S.I.A (Member of the Society of Industrial Artists) there is no reference made to her in Designers In Britain: Index to Designers published by Allan Wingate and the Society of Industrial Artists.

Cottage Garden was clearly by a competent designer and yet, other than the contemporary reports and a few samples of her textiles in two design archives, there appeared to be no record of her existence as a designer. In an article in the Bristol Evening World of 29 March 1955, discussing the Furnishing Fabrics Exhibition at Hamilton House, Piccadilly, London, three designers were mentioned by name:

"A much-admired printed satin in muted shades of grey, beige and black is designed by Lucienne Day. Mary White contributes a print of formal leaves in white, black and green against a background of irregular rectangles in varying shades of green and tan. Marianne Straub is responsible for a new green upholstery cloth with a "Terylene" surface finish."

The design written about in this press cutting is not Cottage Garden, the Mary White design most mentioned in the press, and yet White is mentioned in the same paragraph as two extremely famous designers from the mid twentieth century. This fact would lead one to suppose that she made a significant contribution to design in the 1950s, whether it be at the top end of the market, like Lucienne Day , as the main designer for a company, like Marianne Straub, or on a more mundane level, providing designs for the mass market. With a birth date of 1930 it seemed imperative to discover more about this designer before any trace of her existence was obliterated.

Having exhausted design sources for information about White, a more personal approach was taken. Using information about her county of residence in 1955, it was decided that White should be looked for as a person rather than as a designer. This approach proved successful and eventually White was located living not far from where she had been born, grew up and trained as a designer. This information may appear to be irrelevant, but it should be noted that many well-known women designers seem to have at least gravitated towards a capital city, for example Lucienne Day who had trained at Croydon Art College and therefore was already in the Greater London area before she went on to the Royal College of Art. Other women designers such as Jacqueline Groag moved from one country to another to pursue their careers.. For example Jacqueline Groag, born Hilde Blumberger, studied in Vienna in the 1920s under Josef Hoffmann and Frank Cizek at the Kunstwerbeschule. Later she designed for the Wiener Werstätte and in 1929 worked in Paris designing fabrics for internationally known couturiers. Although White entered the world of freelance designing straight from art school, she never moved away from the Isle of Thanet, a promontory forming the north-east extremity of Kent with an area of approximately five square miles. Even Canterbury School of Art and Crafts that White attended for one year is only approximately fifteen miles from Margate.The fact that she remained based away from any large city, national or international, may well have affected her exposure in the design world.

The vast majority of information used in this essay has been acquired through interviews with Mary White and with her husband Claude Dening. This has been carefully augmented by documents, photographs, textile samples and other materials in Mary White?s personal archive. These items include: design records, many of which are supported by photographs; her design registers; sales records for each textile firm in London and Manchester; account books which include details of receipts for designs sold; enlarged photographs of selected textile designs; two archive storage boxes of fabric samples of Mary White designs; a photograph album of ceramic decoration carried out for Thanet Pottery; framed examples of flower paintings; specimens of large decorated ceramic bowls and other items; a photograph of Mary White as a potter in the ?Thanet at School? book; a photograph of a Mary White textile design in "How to Furnish Your Home" by Gordon Russell; her curriculum vitae; papers relating to her election to the Society of Industrial Artists; ceramic price lists.

Her gracious loan to me of this valuable contemporary material has allowed me to fully explore her designs and working practices, thus gaining a wider view of her work than would have been possible from the limited published sources and small number of textile samples available in design institutions. Close contact with Claude Dening, most especially via email, has ensured that any questions, arising during the inspection of the materials were directly addressed and resolved.

Chapter one will provide biographical and educational details about Mary White. Chapter two will consider some Mary White designs that are available in public repositories. Chapter three will go some way to serving the purpose of a catalogue raisonné by looking at visual and sales evidence of her total output as a freelance designer. Chapter four will seek to set her in context and compare her working practices with those of other designers. It should thus be possible to offer some explanation as to White?s lack of visibility in the design history of the twentieth century. At the very least, this essay seeks to bring Mary White to the attention of those who have an interest in mid-twentieth century design and allow her work to be considered alongside those whose names are already known.

Interviews with both Mary White and Claude Dening revealed the family and social background of Mary White. She was born as Mary Lilian White, the daughter and granddaughter of wholesale nurserymen, on 22nd January 1930 in Margate, Kent. The family business had several quite extensive sites, employed a foreman and several workers and according to Mary White had she "been a boy, she would have gone into the business. Mary made it clear early that her objective was a School of Art ". Claude Dening explained that she initially attended Canterbury School of Art & Crafts at the age of fourteen in 1944, transferring to Thanet School of Art & Crafts, in Margate, when it reopened after the war in 1945. She remained there until 1950, obtaining the National Diploma in Design (Fabric Printing) in 1949 and the National Diploma in Design (Pottery) in 1950. [Illustration 2 shows Mary White at Thanet School of Art and Crafts in 1950].

"Thanet at School", a book in Mary White's library, that was published for Thanet Education Week in 1950, explains how in East Kent, the Canterbury College of Art and Crafts served as a regional centre for a group of art schools: Thanet School of Art and Crafts was one of the schools amongst these. The combined facilities of these schools, with advanced and specialized subjects concentrated in Canterbury, enabled students to achieve the highest qualifications in art and industrial design. Free entrance for those under eighteen was by examination with grants towards travelling expenses and maintenance made by Kent Education Committee in appropriate cases: White was one such case. Claude Dening explained that Mary received a grant because her father had died in 1944, leaving her mother with four children to support. Courses of full-time art education at the school led to annual examinations by Kent County Examinations Board, the City and Guilds of London Institute and the Ministry of Education. Students who gained the School Leaving Certificate were able to study for the National Diploma in Design which was recognized by the Ministry of Education as a qualification for teaching.
It would appear that White benefitted directly from Education reforms. The Ministry of Education had come into being as a result of the Butler Education Act in 1944 . The school leaving age was increased to fifteen and it was stated that children should "be given an education appropriate to their age, abilities and aptitudes." Claude Dening, retired Divisional Education Officer for Kent suggests that had his wife been granted a place at the Girls? Grammar school, rather than a secondary modern school :
she would have been jockeyed to move on post art school to the graduate ATD (Art Teachers Diploma) course and would have finished up in teaching solely - certainly not in the precarious field of commercial textile design.

Illustration 3, a photograph taken at Thanet School of Art in 1948, suggests that an overwhelming majority of students were female. This should come as no surprise in light of a pamphlet entitled "Further Education: The Scope and the Content of its Opportunities under the Education Act of 1944." In this publication it was suggested that local education authorities should encourage "women's specialised interests" which in accordance with the hegemony of the day believed that the main goal of women's education was to fit them for their roles as wives and mothers. White's attendance of classes in fabric printing and pottery fitted in well with the advice that domestic skills should be made more attractive by the inclusion of instruction in "repair and decoration to fabric and furniture [and] planning good colour schemes".

Textile design has historically been considered an appropriate occupation for a woman. This attitude continued to prevail in some of the foremost design circles of the early twentieth century. Even in Germany:
when talented female students arrived to study at the Bauhaus, they soon discovered that the founder of the school, Walter Gropius, was not strictly adhering to his original declaration of equality between men and women. In the hierarchy of art and design, it was textiles that were deemed to be "women's work".

When discussing the link between femininity and embroidery, Roszicka Parker stated that:
women...managed to make meanings of their own in the very medium intended to inculcate self-effacement.

This may well be an issue to consider at a later dater in connection with the work of Mary White who clearly delights in the more feminine side of design.

Despite having sold her first textile design [Illustration 4] whilst still a student, White appreciated that her two National Diplomas in Design "gave qualified teacher status in primary, secondary and special schools." According to her curriculum vitae, from 1950 to 1961 she taught in further education at Thanet School of Art & Crafts, Dover School of Art & Crafts and Canterbury College of Art whilst also pursuing a career as a freelance textile designer. Illustration 5 shows pages from a Dover School of Art and Crafts brochure for the year 1958-59; Mary White is named as a part-time pottery assistant, under her married name of M.L.Dening. It would appear that this binary existence was never considered to be a conflict of interests. Indeed an article in "The Cabinet Maker and Complete Home Furnisher" dated 13 Mar 1955, stated that Mary White, M.S.I.A [Member of the Society of Industrial Artists] was " a pottery teacher at Dover School of Art"and her designs were "inspired probably by the garden "full of strange plants" which she and her husband have with their bungalow on a cliff top in Kent". In May 1955, another article, this time in "The Houseowner" again reported that Mary White, M.S.I.A "is 25. She is married and a teacher of pottery at Dover School of Art" . Rather than attempt to conceal the fact that not all her time was taken up with designing, White openly advertised that she also taught.

1955 appears to have been the highpoint of White's career as a textile designer, or at least the point where the press took the most interest in her. In the White archives a cutting from an unidentified newspaper, pasted onto "Barlow & Jones Limited of Manchester", headed paper states:
Arriving in Manchester on Monday with a portfolio of sketches under her arm will be Mary White, who at 25 is fast becoming one of the best-known of our young textile designers. About three times a year she makes this trip to Manchester to visit leading cotton firms with her latest ideas for furnishings and fabrics. "I have been lucky" she told me. "The first time I ventured North, feeling very nervous and just out from five years at an art school, I sold nearly all my designs. I have always been freelance because I married soon after I started designing and I find it easier to work from home."

When a woman designer is discussed, reference is often made to her marital status and comments about her partner are considered to be as relevant as any information about the designer or her designs. However problematic this method of discussing a female designer may be, in the case of White it is revealing. Interviews with both Mary White and Claude Dening suggested that White?s family life greatly influenced the length of time that she worked in textile design and even had a bearing on her moving from textile design to pottery. In effect, White was active in textile design for less than a decade. Had she lived in a textile producing area, such as Lancashire her career may well have been prolonged and she would possibly have had the opportunity to become an in-house designer. When interviewed, she stated that the main reason for ceasing to work as a freelance designer was the difficulty of combining family life with "lugging a huge portfolio up to London and Manchester" .

Further education teaching in the evenings provided a good income for a growing family and White's personal creativity was satisfied by the work that she did with her brother, David White, in their business Thanet Pottery Ltd, first located at Westwood, Margate, Kent, and from 1961 at Broadstairs, Kent. This business could be used as a paradigm to demonstrate what patriarchal design historians consider to be the polemical split between the male and female conceptions of design for during interviews with Mary White and Claude Dening it was suggested that David's prime concern was shape and texture, whilst Mary's specialisation was surface decoration.

Initially this suggestion is acceptable, particularly when one considers that Mary White was already well-established in textile design, a traditionally female area. However, in her book on potters and paintresses, Cheryl Buckley puts forward a case that:

The ground-rules of history which define the criteria for the selection, classification and prioritisation of types of design, categories of designers, distinct styles and periods and different modes of production are shaped within patriarchy.

Buckley debates the meaning of patriarchy and rejects the idea that it is a "universal and trans-historical form of oppression" in favour of Griselda Pollock's definition:

Patriarchy does not refer to the static, oppressive domination of one sex over another, but a web of psycho-social relationships which institute a socially significant difference on the axis of sex which is so deeply located in our very sense of lived, sexual identity that it appears to us as natural and unalterable.

Revealingly, when questioned, Mary White said that as a young girl, her ambition had been to be a painter. Reflecting this ambition, White's designs are distinctly two-dimensional. However, this should in no way suggest that she lacks understanding of the underlying structure of the plants and flowers on which she bases her designs. Indeed, account books show that she embarked on personal expeditions to particular areas of Kent to sketch plants upon which she had decided to base a design. For example on 7 August 1950 she cycled to Minnis Bay and Birchington to gather seaweed and other seashore specimens and on 11 February 1950 she went to Cliffsend, Ramsgate again for seashore materials, entering in her accounts 1s 6d for refreshments and 1s for bus fares. and on 2 June 1951 she made a "visit [to] the salt water marshes at Faversham and Seasalter for special saltwater plants, marsh samphire, annual seablite" .

She also purchased scientific and botanical books, such as "A Botanical Register" dated 1825 and "Elements of Conchology", to aid her in her understanding of the structure of the plants and other natural materials that she drew. These books remain in her library today. A note in accounts for 1955 shows that she also borrowed biological and zoological books from the University of London. Even in retirement, White's books are meticulously arranged according to subject matter and a catalogue maintained: this facilitates the finding of a particular book. Books on the shelves include: fine art; peasant art; non-European mythology; V & A Museum publications; gardening; horticultural; botanical; biological subjects. By far the largest category of books relate to horticulture. Therefore it come as no surprise that the vast majority, if not all, of White's designs are based on plants or flowers.

Of fourteen contemporary references to Mary White, in such diverse publications as "Farmer and Stock Breeder", "The Hospital" and "The Ceylon Observer" as well as the expected trade publications, six were of her design Cottage Garden. This would appear to be one of White's most successful designs. It was made available by Heals, in 1955, at a price of 10s 9d per yard, coming onto the market at a time when a greater number of people than ever were accepting "contemporary" design. On 23 March 1955, the Liverpool Daily Post reported:
The past two years have seen a furnishing fabric revolution - not in the fabrics themselves, for there were abstract and ultra-modern designs about before the war, but in the demand for them. The fact is people can now appreciate fabric patterns which don't look "like" anything, but which make a surface pleasing and restful to the eye, expressed in colours that are soft and unexpected.
But most of the contemporary fabrics people are buying now, do take recognisable objects - single flowers, or leaves, or perhaps animals - and arrange them in more or less geometric patterns".

Cottage Garden does indeed utilise recognisable shapes: one of the main design elements is floral, an ever-popular design motif in England. In Cottage Garden, White has managed to move away from a purely representational style, evident in some of her earlier designs, such as Zinnias, Design No.164, (Illustration 21a), sold to Heals, and Design No. 255 (Fig.1a) sold to Warners. In Cottage Garden, White has analysed the structure and form of the plants that she uses in ther design, yet for all that they are instantly recognisable as garden plants.

Furnishing World also considered Cottage Garden to be a worthwhile design:
The phrase "floral cottons" conjures up a picture to many people of the duller, bread-and-butter designs in this fibre. Nothing could be further from the truth, when floral cottons from the 1955 ranges are viewed by the buyer. Three of these garden-inspired fabrics are illustrated here. Each is individual - one is very contemporary in style - and all are attractive and easy to live with.
From this year's new range of roller-printed cottons by Heal?s Wholesale and Exports Ltd., we have selected "Cottage Garden" designed by Mary White. This design is contemporary in feeling, but the gay, dancing movement of the stylised flowers gives it a softness infrequently seen in the more advanced furnishing fabrics. It is a 48-inch cloth available in blue/grey/lime; wine/grey/lime; green/grey/tan; sage/grey/yellow; grey/yellow/red; and brown/fawn/coral.

This design was so successful that it was mentioned in an article in "The Hospital" in November 1955. The article discussed an exhibition of cotton fabrics that ran from 12th to 19th October 1955 at the Building Centre, Store Street, London WC1:
There were more than 100 cotton furnishing fabrics on display selected from current ranges which are now, or are shortly to be available in leading stores throughout the country.

The article explained how not all designs are suitable for the hospital environment:

In an exhibition of contemporary fabrics, many of them are ruled out for hospitals because the colours used tend to be over stimulating and even startling. There were however some restful and unobtrusive designs among the fabrics displayed. From among the range of curtains on display the following were noted of interest for hospital furnishing schemes:-
....... HEAL' "Cottage Garden" No.WE.1015 which had a large leafy contemporary design and was a roller-printed cotton in yellow-green with soft olive and tan on a white ground.

Cottage Garden (Illustration 1) consists of a design printed onto 48 inch wide white cotton. The pattern is printed in five colours, one of which is black. The design is simple and "clean" consisting of background areas of coloured, abstract leaf shapes, superimposed with black outlines of flower parts. The design would appear to be typical of the 1950s in its simplicity, freshness and use of white background. The design has strong vertical movement created by the individual elements of the design being several times longer than their width. This, coupled with the vertical axis of each element being slightly off-centre, is ideally suited to curtains that are likely to be hung in a modern domestic interior with large windows. The dimensions and placing of the individual elements, suggest the folds of hanging curtains being moved by a light breeze.

Coppice (Illustration 6) produced by Heals in 1954 produces a similar effect. In this design, however, the ground is less white, being under- printed with leaves that are even more abstract, in two close tones of blue/green. White's characteristic skeletal plant "drawings" are executed in black and dark red. Tibor Reich, an internationally known textile designer wrote :
the purpose of pattern in printed textiles should be expression of flow and rhythm which will move sympathetically with its surroundings, distribution of colour areas, and to give pure visual pleasure and tranquillity on the one hand, and interest and thrill on the other.

Coppice ably meets these requirements as can be seen in the photograph that appeared in "The Studio Year Book of 1955-6." (Illustration 7). The design of the full-length curtains, rather than detracting from the contemporary lines of the furniture designed for Heals by A.J. Milne, compliments and completes the interior in just the way described by Reich.

Astrid Sampe, was the designer who supervised the textile studio of A/B Nordiska Kompaniet in Sweden and, according to Lesley Jackson:
was responsible for commissioning textile designs, including the important ?Signerad Textil? (?Signed Textile?) collection by artists and architects in 1954... such as the architect Sven Markelius and Stig Lindberg, the ceramic designer.

She also had strong views on the purpose of pattern:
I feel that the purpose of the pattern of a printed textile is to create a clean and attractive background to human beings, and their accessories, such as furniture and lamp fittings. There are three groups of printed textile designs: spontaneous, textures, and geometric. I think a printed pattern should be architectural. This means that the design should have a basic feeling of either horizontals or verticals or both. Design should be neat and precise; the broken surface of the hanging cloth will give all the necessary freedom.

White's use of regular-sized and regularly-spaced cutouts as the underlying design ensures that Coppice meets Stampe's design criteria. The effect is clean, neat, precise and has structurally commanding horizontal and vertical elements. According to White, Coppice was probably her best-selling fabric. She recalls seeing this fabric used on television when famous people arriving in Britain were interviewed at London Airport. A letter from Mr Worthington of Heals mentions the design Coppice by name. He states:

we have had quite a success with "COPPICE" and I think some of your other designs would be very suitable to print.

In her Furnishing Fabric (Illustration 8) designed for David Whitehead in 1954 White's methodology of superimposing simple black, or other dark colour, line drawings onto blocks of colour is again successful. The under-design emulates the effects of vertical folds, this time even simulating the effects of fading caused by strong sunlight. The design serves to remind the onlooker of the underlying texture and substance of the woven cotton fabric onto which the design is printed. In turn, the simplified rendering of the plant, Lunaria Annua (Honesty), is well-executed. The strong black outlines of the plant emphasise the under-design that is printed in pale neutral tones. Lucienne Day?s Trio (Illustration 9), also available 1954-55, utilises the same method of superimposing an abstracted pictorial representation over a horizontally-banded, continuous design of paler tones.

The aim of the designer of fabrics should, however, respect the nature of the material and the process of working it; a good textile is frankly fibrous in its appearance, and makes no attempt to disguise warp and weft, even in the production of ornament.

Whilst White is primarily concerned with surface design, she is well aware of the physical make-up of cloth. According to Claude Dening, she had access to a large experimental loom and studied "weaving extensively as part of her NDD textile course & understands weaving processes." When questioned, White stated that she designed with plain, untextured fabrics in mind, yet Edinburgh Weavers bought several of her designs to make into woven fabric (Illustration 10). However, they do not have the impact of her printed textiles. In common with many women designers, her prime concern is with surface design. Her husband, Claude Dening, stated that she was a fast and accurate worker and always had "in her head" the way a pattern would repeat. She did not need to spend hours working out how a pattern would repeat, she visualised the pattern before she began to work.

White's working practises were exemplary in so far as she kept meticulous records,thus it has been possible to create a spreadsheet from her index of designs, with details of those sold, who to and for how much. In some cases, a black and white photographic record was also kept.
Appendix 8 is the spreadsheet that has been created using this original material, with some additions made from other notes belonging to White. Details held on the card index relate to textile designs in the period 1950 to 1958. The first numbered design was Design No: 130. This number was chosen arbitrarily in order to disguise the newness of the designer to the design world. It was felt by both White and her husband, who aided her with administrative tasks, that allocating extremely low numbers to designs would advertise that she was new to freelance designing and might influence the decision to buy or reject a design. Therefore design numbers range from 130 to 1244, a total of 1113 designs in eight years; an average of 140 designs each year.

Information included in the spreadsheet is in columns, from left to right: number allocated to design; whether photograph of design available; whether textile sample available; name of design or comment about subject or type of design (square brackets [ ] denote comment by author, curly brackets { }denote additional note by designer); company design sold to; date design completed if known; date design sold; date payment received; amount of payment received for design.

The table shown below sets out how many designs were completed in each month from April 1952 to Nov 1957 . However, It should be remembered that this table is only as accurate as the information annotated on the cards.

This table indicates that of the 1246 designs shown in Appendix 8, completion dates are available for only 766. Although not all cards show a completion date it can still be ascertained that White completed well over one hundred designs per year.

Appendix 8 also shows one hundred and six scanned images relating to designs in the card index, for which there was a photographic record, and which were sold to manufacturers by White between May 1952 and January 1958. Again it should be stressed that this information is incomplete as not all designs sold have a photographic record card. However, this appendix serves to illustrate the variety of designs created by White. The card index also holds photographic record cards for a great many designs that were not sold. It is hoped that these ?withdrawn? designs will be scanned at a future date to allow an even fuller inspection and investigation into all available designs by Mary White that has not been possible at this time. It is important to emphasise that however many designs Mary White succeeded in selling, there are a great many additional designs that did not sell, but should not be overlooked in any further study of her,

White's perennial love of drawing and producing floral subjects is shown in designs such as: 255; 291; 573; 658; 815; 824; 852; 853 [see Appendix 3]. At the other end of the scale are completely abstract designs: 344; 400; 462; 524; 533; 579; 584; 849 (see Appendix 8). Nevertheless, White's work is not polemical as in between these two extremes are designs where she has combined tried and trusted elements to create designs which are neither overtly floral nor completely geometric or abstract. Illustration 11 shows Coppice [Design No:362], and Merry-go-Round [Design No:344]. The basic underpinning of both these designs is a series of virtually identical "cut-out" shapes. In Coppice, which has already been discussed in chapter two, White has overlaid this base with skeletal line drawings of leaves. Merry-go-Round also makes use of another element often used by White. This element can be seen in the horizontal design based on illustrations of cells from botanical books in White's library. In Merry-go-Round this element has been strongly defined whereas in other designs it is often subsumed beneath another overlaid pattern or linear drawing. An able demonstration of this can be seen in Furnishing Fabric (Illustration 8) sold to David Whitehead in 1954, a fabric that has already been discussed in chapter one and Rambling [Design No:292] (Illustration 12). Similarly with the more floral designs, White reuses her repertoire of elements and motifs: she varies size, configuration and combination thus enabling an almost limitless supply of designs. For example Design No: 852, completed in June 1956 and sold to Heals, and Design No: 882, completed in September 1956, and sold to D.Whitehead, both have the plant Begonia Rex as the main design element. The size of the leaves in each design varies considerably, as does the way in which the plant is combined with other elements.

However individual White's designs may be, she did not exist in a vacuum. By the time White was ten years old she was living in a country at war where textile design was low on a list of priorities, if not non-existent. Shortages of dyes, fibres and production time for other than essential war work led to restrictions influencing what could be produced: small pattern repeat size causing less wastage was a major issue in utility textile design. Once the second world ended, exhibitions such as "Britain Can Make It" in 1946 and the Festival of Britain in 1951, exposed the idea of good design to a wider public. The influence of the Bauhaus, and Modernism combined with advances in science allowing nature, on a microscopic scale, to inspire artists and designers. Relaxation of austerity measures allowed international styles such as the "New Look" to emerge in Paris in 1947. Cross-fertilisation occurred by means of increasingly popular magazines which advertised exciting new goods. Manufacturers such as David Whitehead and Heals began to promote textiles by named designers, some of whom were already known as artists. It is interesting to note that in a selection of eight curtain fabrics shown in "How To Furnish Your Home" by Gordon Russell & Alan Jarvis, published in 1953 (Illustration 14), only the fabric Rock Garden designed by Mary White for Story & Co mentions the designer by name. Even Heal's Calyx linen bears no mention of its designer, Lucienne Day.

Though White has stated that her very early ambition was to be a painter her practical nature led to the realisation that a career as a textile designer was more likely to result in her earning her own living. From the age of fourteen, when she first attended Canterbury School of Art, she had already begun an intensive course of practical study that led to becoming a commercial designer. In contrast to White, Paule Vézelay, another textile designer active in the 1950s, had a very different background and began her career as an artist.

Vézelay always considered herself to have been one of the very first painters to be commissioned to design non-figurative textiles. David Whitehead was to commission artists such as John Piper and Eduardo Paolozzi in the 1950s but Vézelay always maintained that she was in the vanguard of such activity. By the 1950s Vézelay's private income was insufficient to support her: in the nineteen fifties and beyond, she had to rely heavily on her income as a freelance designer and artist. Vézelay is being compared with White because both were members of the Society of IndustrialArtists.

In White's personal archive, a leaflet published by the S.I.A, laying out a schedule of average fees and salaries for textile design was found. Indeed, payment records show that amounts paid to White corresponded closely to amounts suggested by the S.I.A. Several times, without success, White applied to be included in Designers in Britain, an S.I.A publication. However, her lack of success with applications for inclusion in their publications does not seem to have caused her to be disillusioned with the society and when interviewed White stated that she had sat on one of their sub-committees.

In contrast, Vézelay appears to have had a problematic relationship with the
S.I.A and also with at least one manufacturer. Vézelay's correspondence with both the S.I.A and Mr Worthington at Heals demonstrates how she was prepared to stand up for what she considered to be the rights of designers. Time and again, in letters to various officials of the S.I.A she states how she feels that the needs of freelance designers are swept aside whilst the various committees are monopolised by teachers who insist on pushing forward the needs of students. However disparaging she may have been about the ways in which the S.I.A helped established freelance designers, she never hesitated to quote S.I.A rates to manufacturers. At one stage in the 1950s the letters cross backwards and forwards between Vézelay and Mr Worthington of Heals in a respectful battle of wills. On the 22nd June 1956, Worthington states:
you've invoiced us 50 gns plus 15% for each colourway for ?Contrast?. This as you know is considerably more than we paid you before [she was paid 35gns , plus 15% for each colourway, for her first designs for Heals] and you didn?t inform us that you were increasing your prices.

I notice that you have quoted the S.I.A scale of fees but the 50gns for the design plus 15% per colourway is of course, the maximum charge suggested. In any case, this is more than double what we pay any other designer, including Lucienne Day, at least four times the average fee. If however you are sticking to the price, I will pay it but I must inform you that I cannot afford this outlay each year.

Vézelay stands her ground explaining how Mr Worthington saw a painting of hers at the Festival of Britain Exhibition and asked her to do a design based on it. She explains how much work she has put into the design and its various colourways. Finally by 21st August, a fee of 40gns was agreed upon and an undertaking made that both sides would agree a price in advance for any future designs.

Throughout her relationship with Heals, Vézelay continues to demand the highest end of the scale of fees for her designs. In 1957 she charges 50gns for a design made from a painting and 45 gns for other "ready" designs. In 1959 she informs Mr Worthington that she is increasing her fees to:

60gns for medium sized designs, 65 gns for very large designs with extra colourways at 10% for two colours and 15% for more than two colours.

White was one of the students that Vézelay railed against. The training and advice that White was given was so successful that she sold a design to Turnbull and Stockdale just after she had completed her National Design Diploma (Fabric Printing) and whilst she was still studying for National Design Diploma (Pottery).

The two designers negotiated sales and payments in very different ways. Vézelay subscribed to the idea of the artistic genius. She was particular about every aspect of how her designs were used and insisted on maintaining control at all times. Every colourway for a design was worked out by Vézelay herself and indeed a considerable part of her income was generated from such adaptations of her original designs. After seeing one of her designs photographed upside down in a Heal?s brochure, she insisted that on her more ambiguous designs an indication of "TOP" and an arrow should be printed on the selvedge. In contrast, White's attitude was more craftsmanlike:
I do about 100 new patterns a year . . . then the firms usually choose their own colourings, as most of them have their own definite idea about that side.

White may not have been insistent on such technicalities as markings on selvedge, nevertheless, Cottage Garden, which has already been discussed at length, has an indication of "TOP" printed. Illustration 21 shows scans of fabric produced by Heals. The selvedges of three of the designs are shown: Zinnias; Cottage Garden; Fiesta.

An inspection of Appendix 8 shows that White quickly became adept at interpreting comments made by manufacturers. A larger number of designs are marked as withdrawn from portfolio at the beginning of White's card index. However, the percentage of designs sold increased rapidly. She soon learned which producer preferred which type of design and was able to be selective about which designs she presented to them. A note about her second visit to British Celanese Limited on 13 January 1956, when she met with Mr Walker states "Big florals and country scenes. NO contemp. at present." After her fourth visit to Liberty & Co (Wholesale) Ltd on 14 September 1956 when she met with Mr Sudlow, she recorded in her card index "florals - not spiky - not fussy - few colours." When interviewed White stated that in no way would she design to order but by listening to the comments of prospective clients she was able to take into account such considerations as pattern repeat sizes, width of fabric and preferred types of design. Such market awareness resulted in White selling a higher proportion of her designs than she had initially done. Once a design had been bought by a manufacturer, White appears to have accepted whatever price was suggested. A few smaller designs were sold for four, six or eight guineas, many around fifteen to eighteen guineas and the highest price of twenty-three guineas was paid in March 1958 by Story Fabrics Ltd for designs no: 1109 and 1138. Illustration 13 showing a 1953 advert for a Myer's single divan bed priced at £17-10-0 allows some understanding of the value of such prices. Whilst White did not expect or insist on such high payments for designs as Vézelay, nevertheless some of the sums that she received were not insignificant.

On several occasions Vézelay invited Mr Worthington of Heals to come to her studio to view her designs. In contrast, White made many trips per year to both London and Manchester to show her portfolio of designs to different manufacturers. A report of one such visit to Manchester in 1955 has already been mentioned in chapter one. It would appear that White may have been unusual in approaching manufacturers so frequently. An article in Design, states:
Like most Lancashire cotton manufacturers, Whitehead's buy many of their textile designs from French studios. The Paris designers, they say, take the trouble to go to Lancashire with their new designs, instead of sitting at home and waiting for clients to go to them, as many of their counterparts in London do.

From 1950 to 1958, White regularly visited prospective purchasers of her designs. She may well have been one of very few British designers to do so.

Following an early interest in art and design, White received a more than adequate training from a tutor who had studied at the Royal College of Art, London, an establishment well known for its expertise in textile design. Successfully combining her training with an inherent ability to visualise pattern repeat she began a career as a freelance designer immediately after she had graduated from the Thanet School of Art and Crafts.

Meticulous record keeping and an ability to assimilate the requirements of purchasers without compromising her personal design ideals, ensured that her designs were bought and produced. However, unlike Vézelay who considered herself to be an artist, White's attitude to her design career was more that of a craftswoman and perhaps as such, more in line with the tenets of the Society of Industrial Artists. She was well aware that without the manufacturers, her designs would not be produced and sold to a wide market. Her attitude was professional and consistent and although she provided personal information to the press, at no time did she consider herself to be a personality. Nevertheless, in the 1950s, both she and her designs were mentioned in trade, design and general periodicals. Her designs were very much of the time, met the criteria of leading designers such as Tibor Reich and Astrid Sampe and design theorists such as Herbert Read, and more than served the purpose for which they were created. White worked as a textile designer for just under ten years. Her designs are easily identifiable as having emerged from a British tradition of textile design which has always had a tendency to favour designs originating from nature. Although White was well able to produce designs in a variety of styles or categories, in her own words what she excelled at and what she would wish to be remembered for are her designs in "the modern floral idiom".

Unlike designers such as Day, Groag and Vézelay, Mary White was not totally immersed in the art and design world of a large city. Other areas of her life assumed equal importance and consequently, although she was well known in the nineteen fifties by many textile producers, she never became a household name. A patient in a hospital bed in the nineteen fifties surrounded by Cottage Garden curtains would no more have been aware that they were designed by Mary White than a passenger on an underground train in the nineteen thirties would have known that the upholstery fabric on which they sat was by Enid Marx.

The post-war years saw the emergence of fresher, brighter textiles. These were created by older, established designers such as Jacqueline Groag, Marion Dorn, Marianne Straub and Paule Vézelay together with a new generation of British designers emerging from the Schools of Art and Crafts. Amongst these younger designers were people such as Lucienne Day and the subject of this essay: Mary White. It has been demonstrated that building on artistic abilities, White developed strong business skills thus ensuring that a considerable number of her designs were purchased and eventually printed. Had she gone one stage further and also developed a skill for public relations, she may well have achieved a higher profile and lasting visibility in the design world. There is no way of knowing whether her designs "in the modern floral idiom" or her more abstract or geometrical designs would have continued to be successful throughout the nineteen sixties with the increase in man-made fibres and the accelerating decline in the British Textile Industry. Neither the brevity of White's textile career, nor her lack of personal visibility should detract from the contribution that she made to the look of the 1950s. Now that the twenty-first century has begun, the mid-twentieth century should come under closer scrutiny and previously hidden designers such as Mary White should be revealed. It is hoped that this essay has gone some way to achieving that aim.