Cooper Hewitt says...
Nearly a decade of postwar change in art, architecture and design preceded the formation of influential textile firm Hull Traders in 1957. Traditional floral textiles, long popular in the United Kingdom and abroad, were joined by fabrics more modern in style. Designs for textiles and wallpapers began to follow artistic trends with flat, repeating patterns echoing the art of Paul Klee, Alexander Calder and Joan Miró. [1] In 1951, Heal Fabrics released Calyx, Lucienne Day’s groundbreaking textile with abstracted botanical forms that also seemed to echo the mobile designs of Alexander Calder. [2] By the mid-1950s, modern design was widely accepted by the British public, and more importantly, design education and training also had caught up with the prevailing trends in art and architecture. An influential group of young artists and designers completed their studies, many of them at the Royal College of Art, and began working in the field of surface design.
Hull Traders takes its name from its co-founder Tristram Hull who founded the groundbreaking company with business partner Stanley Coren in 1957 [3]. They took over the production of textiles from smaller companies like Tofos Prints and the innovative Hammer Prints, the design company founded in 1954 by Nigel Henderson and Eduardo Paolozzi. In 1959, Peter Neubert purchased Hull Traders, and almost immediately gave creative control to the young designer Shirley Craven (British, born 1934) who had studied at the Royal College of Art from 1955–1958. [4] Both Neubert and Craven were idealistic and ambitious, and their energy and vision propelled the company forward into the 1960s. While Craven herself was responsible for about one-third of Hull Traders’ designs, she also served as art director and was later promoted to director. Neubert gave Craven complete creative control, and she carefully selected designs from the many talented artists and designers who were graduating from art schools in the late 1950s and early 1960s, many from the Royal College of Art. [5] Under Craven's direction, Hull Traders issued a string of award-winning textiles throughout the 1960s and contributors included Althea McNish, John Drummond, Peter McCulloch, Doreen Dyall, Roger Limbrick, Cliff Holden, Richard Allen, and Dorothy Carr. Whether she was designing herself or selecting freelance designs for the company, Craven was always cognizant of the architectural possibilities presented by Hull Traders' bold compositions and painterly, large-scale patterns, which were always screen printed by hand using pigment dyes.
While competing firms tried to lure her away, Craven devoted twenty years of her design career to Hull Traders. When Peter Neubert decided to retire in the late 1970s, Craven too ended her time at the company, taking her cue from changing styles and a decline in manufacturing. She took a position as textile lecturer at Goldsmiths College, and although she continued to paint, sculpt and draw, she never worked professionally in textile design again. [6] In 1980, Badehome took over the company, but only two years later Hull Traders was closed. [7]
[1] Jennifer Harris, “British Textile Design since 1950,” Apollo, Oct. 1, 1989, 237.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Lesley Jackson, Twentieth-Century Pattern Design: Textile and Wallpaper Pioneers (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002), 104.
[4] Lesley Jackson, “Craven Images,” Crafts, Nov./Dec. 2009, 45.
[5] Ibid., 46.
[6] Ibid., 47.
[7] Jackson, Twentieth-Century Pattern Design, 148.
