One of the main textile exhibits presently on show at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft in its current exhibition - Double Weave: Bourne and Allen's Modernist Textiles* - is a piece of history linked to the celebrated Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre, built as part of the Festival of Britain, a national exhibition held in 1951 to boost morale and celebrate British culture in the aftermath of World War II.
While the Festival was intended to showcase British design, art, and technology, the designers and makers of the vast curtains (shown above and at right) commissioned for the auditorium of the Festival Hall, were not credited in any of the Festival Hall's historical record.
However a photograph accompanying the exhibited curtain at the Ditchling Museum does show the same curtain in the background when the then Princess Elizabeth attended the first concert of the National Federation of Jazz Organisation at the Festival Hall in 1951. The photographer of this picture is also unknown.
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| Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft |
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, in celebrating its 10th anniversary of its major redevelopment, is now proudly honouring its founding textile designer Hilary Bourne and her partner (in life and creative practice) Barbara Allen who were the original designers and makers of the said curtains produced when they won the competition for the project in 1951.
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| Hilary Bourne and Barbara Allen in 1951, setting up a loom. Photo courtesy of Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft |
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| The weight and thickness of the original curtains, measuring two metres by two metres, reflect their role in controlling the acoustics in the concert venue at the Royal Festival Hall. |
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| E-J Scott explains the network of of women textile designers in the modernist movement. |
Curator of the exhibition, producer and academic E-J Scott said the designers Bourne and Allen are billed as two of the most significant textile designers of the modernist period, yet they remain largely unknown - until now. The exhibition now gives space to their story and speak to the invisibility of women as leading modernist designers.
The pair ran an internationally successful textile studio, designing and making a variety of fabrics for major British retail establishments, from tweed for Fortnum & Mason, to furnishing fabric for Heals and scarves for Liberty's, as well as the interiors of the UK's first jet planes.
After winning the commission to design and make curtains for the Royal Festival Hall, Bourne and Allen won the commission to make the costumes for the multi-Oscar winning 1959 film Ben Hur. Scott said the two designers quoted an outrageous price for the challenging project thinking that film producers at MGM would not take them on. An exhibit at the Ditchling Museum shows the costume Bourne and Allen created for Ben-Hur main star Charlton Heston, but however the designers were not credited in any literature associated with the movie.
The Ditchling exhibition rectifies the accomplishments of Bourne and Allen with a wealth of examples of their work who were pioneers in developing new constructions as well as using new yarns, such as lurex. It also highlights textiles from other non-European cultures that has informed the duo's creativity and through their own research and clever insights became part of their modernist textile developments.
Textile historian Dr Jane Hattrick said she discovered in her meticulous research on the influence of the Bourne and Allen, a network of female textile creators who were instrumental in the modernist textile movement of the 20th century. A special section of the exhibition - Map of intimacies: Women's Networks of Love, Friendship and Textile Practice demonstrates the intricate connections among the network of designers. The exhibition speaks to how women's close working intimacy in the modernist movement informs creative pursuits.
Other co-curators who also worked with Scott on the exhibition included textile historian Veronica Isaac (course leader MA Fashion Curation at UAL), Shelley Tobin (textile curator and dress historian), Jane Trais (women's historian) and Suzanne Rowland (costume historian).
Objects on display are from Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft’s collection, with some key loans from other institutions. Work by two contemporary artists will complement the exhibition.
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| Omeima Mudawi-Rowlings' "Drawn to the Light" installation in the Introductory Gallery leading to the Double Weave exhibition in Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft |
Accompanying the Double Weave exhibition is an immersive installation - Drawn to the Light - by textile artist Omeima Mudawi-Rowlings MBE in the Introductory Gallery, featuring textiles coloured with natural dyes using techniques pioneered by Bourne and Allen. It explores Mudawi-Rowlings' own experience as a Black deaf artist with Sudanese heritage, using layering of text and images in English, BSL and Arabic. The installation is comprised of lanterns and a pathway of personal symbols and meanings. The experience of being seen and not seen, and of textiles often being dismissed as "domestic" or "women’s work" is part of this story.
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| Poppy Fuller Abbott with her textile creation inspired by Bourne and Allen. |
In addition, Sussex-based weaver and dyer Poppy Fuller Abbott (pictured left) has also created textile samples in the style of Bourne and Allen’s work. Visitors can also watch a film of Poppy at work on the loom at the exhibition.
Poppy studied Textile Design in London, where she specialised in weaving at Central Saint Martins. After graduating, she began studying natural dyes, and received the Clothworkers Award at Cockpit Arts, where she had a studio for 2 years. Her practice, POP Studio, is based at Studio50 in Hove.
Steph Fuller, Director, Ditchling Museum said “In this 10th year since the creation of Ditchling Museum of Art+ Craft in its current form, it’s the perfect moment to celebrate Hilary Bourne our co-founder, and showcase the fantastic Modernist textiles she created with her partner Barbara Allen. This is a rare chance to see this work and discover their Modernist legacy, alongside a new textile installation by Omeima Mudawi-Rawlings which references their lives and techniques, bringing them into a new contemporary context.”
*Double Weave: Bourne and Allen's Modernist Textiles at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft runs until April 14th 2024.
Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft is home to a permanent collection that showcases the work of artists and crafts people living and working in Ditchling – a village which nurtured some of the 20th century’s most innovative and creative ideas in crafts and design. The museum presents two new exhibitions a year alongside the permanent collection.
Photos by Lucia Carpio at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft unless otherwise noted.
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