Shirley Craven (b.1934) British Textile Designer

Advertisements
Five, furnishing fabric by Shirley Craven
Five, furnishing fabric by Shirley Craven

Shirley Craven (b.1934) was a British textile designer.

Education

Between 1955 and 1958, she studied painting, sculpture, and textile design at Kingston upon Hull and the Royal College of Art, London.

Shape furnishing fabric by Shirley Craven
Shape furnishing fabric by Shirley Craven (V&A)

Biography

From 1960, as a consultant designer, she executed designs for printed fabrics produced by Hull Traders. In 1963, she joined Hull Traders as chief designer and a director of the progressive business. The company produced a wide variety of vibrant, contemporary designs, taking advantage of the flexibility provided by screen printing. It consistently took home the Council of Industrial Design Award for printed textiles, including one in 1968 for this design. Shirley Craven developed several related designs simultaneously while working directly from sketches, always maintaining a sense of spontaneity and freshness. (Albert Museum, n.d.) 

Craven was a member of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers (now CSD) and was married to the designer Bernard Holdoway, (1934–2009). (Shirley Craven | Portraits: Women Designers, n.d.) 

Shirley Craven (b.1934) for Hull Traders Heptad, designed 1959 (invaluable)
Shirley Craven (b.1934) for Hull Traders Heptad, designed 1959 (invaluable)

Style

According to the Textile Society, Craven ‘pioneered an aesthetic more akin to painting than textiles, breaking all the rules and ‘revolutionising post-war furnishings with her dramatic, unconventional large-scale designs’. Her bold patterns and colours were commercially successful, capturing the style of the swinging sixties and receiving critical acclaim.  (Shirley Craven : Messums London, 2020) 

Recognition

She received awards from the Council of Industrial Design (fabrics by Hull Traders), including for Le Bosquet in 1961; Division, Sixty-Three, and Shape in 1964; and Simple Solar and Five in 1968. (Byars, 2004) 

Sources

Byars, M., & Riley, T. (2004). The design encyclopedia. Laurence King Publishing. https://amzn.to/3ElmSlL

Albert Museum, V. A. (n.d.). Five | Shirley Craven | V&A Explore The Collections. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O17412/five-furnishing-fabric-shirley-craven/

Shirley Craven : Messums London. (2020, March 31). Messums London. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://messumslondon.com/artists/shirley-craven/

Shirley Craven | Portraits: Women Designers. (n.d.). Shirley Craven | Portraits: Women Designers. Retrieved October 3, 2022, from https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/womendesignersportraits/2015/11/10/shirley-craven/

Textile Design Books – Amazon

* This website may contain affiliate links and I may earn a small commission when you click on links at no additional cost to you.  As an Amazon and Sovrn affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Advertisements

More British Textile Designers

  • Morton Sundour’s beautiful British furnishing fabrics

    Morton Sundour’s beautiful British furnishing fabrics

    It was founded in 1914, by Alexander Morton who reorganised his Alexander Morton and Company Ltd, with Morton Sundour as “the major off-shoot”. It was run by his second son James Morton.Read More →


    Read More →


  • Robert Yorke Goodden (1909-2002) British Architect Designer

    Robert Yorke Goodden (1909-2002) British Architect Designer

    He was in private practice since 1932. Wallpapers, domestic machine-pressed glassware for Chance Bros., 1953 coronation hangings for Westminster Abbey, gold and silverwares, ceremonial metalwork, glassware for King’s College, Cambridge, 1961 metal-foil murals for the oceanliner Canberra, engraved and sandblasted glass murals for Pilkington. Read More →


    Read More →


  • Shirley Craven (b.1934) British Textile Designer

    Shirley Craven (b.1934) British Textile Designer

    Shirley Craven (b.1934) was a British textile designer. She studied at Kingston upon Hull and the Royal College of Art, London. Craven ‘pioneered an aesthetic more akin to painting than textiles’, breaking ‘all the rules’.Read More →


    Read More →


  • Marvel at the beauty of the Snakeshead pattern by William Morris

    Marvel at the beauty of the Snakeshead pattern by William Morris

    Morris used Indian silks and a red and black colour scheme to create Snakehead, featuring his favourite flower, the fritillary.Read More →


    Read More →


  • Elizabeth Peacock (1880 – 1969) British textile designer

    Elizabeth Peacock (1880 – 1969) British textile designer

    She was best known for the eight banners commissioned by Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst for the Great Hall in Dartington between 1934 and 1938. She was a spinner, dyer, and weaver and an outstanding teacher from 1940 until 1957.Read More →


    Read More →


  • Enid Crystal Dorothy Marx (1902 – 1998) British textile and graphic designer

    Enid Crystal Dorothy Marx (1902 – 1998) British textile and graphic designer

    Designs for London Underground seats. She studied painting and wood engraving at the Royal College of Art in London, as well as at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.Read More →


    Read More →


  • Alastair J.F. Morton (1910 – 1963) British textile Manufacturer

    Alastair J.F. Morton (1910 – 1963) British textile Manufacturer

    Morton joined his family’s Morton Sundour Fabrics in 1931 and oversaw the company’s first screen-printed fabrics. He was the artistic director and principal designer of Edinburgh Weavers in Carlisle, which was established in 1928 as Morton Sundour’s creative design unit from 1932 to 1935. From the 1930s, he was a supporter of the Modern movement,…


    Read More →


  • Jacqueline Groag (1903 – 1986) Czech textile designer

    Jacqueline Groag (1903 – 1986) Czech textile designer

    Jacqueline Groag (1903 – 1986) was a Czech textile designer and ceramicist. Born in Prague she studied in Vienna at the Kunstgewerbeschule during the 1920s. In 1937 she moved to Paris where she designed dress prints for Jeanne Lanvin, Elsa Schiparelli and others.Read More →


    Read More →


  • Lucienne Day (1917 – 2010), influential 🇬🇧 textile designer

    Lucienne Day (1917 – 2010), influential  🇬🇧 textile designer

    Lucienne Day was one of the most influential post-war British textile designers. She developed a unique style of pattern making. Read More →


    Read More →


  • Minnie Macleish (1876 – 1957 ) British textile designer

    Minnie Macleish (1876 – 1957 ) British textile designer

    She collaborated with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Constance Irving at London’s Foxton textiles and Amsterdam’s Metz store. Macleish was a prolific designer during the 1920s and 1930s, creating patterns for Morton Sundour fabrics.Read More →


    Read More →


  • Honiton Lace the beauty of complex patterns

    Honiton Lace the beauty of complex patterns

    Honiton lace is a type of bobbin lace made in Honiton, Devon, in the United Kingdom. Its ornate motifs and complex patterns are created separately, before being sewn into a net ground. Common motifs include daisies, roses, shamrocks, ivy leaves, lilies, camellias, convolvulus, poppies, briony, antwerp diamonds, trefoils, ferns, and acorns.Read More →


    Read More →


  • Peter McCulloch (b.1933) British textile designer

    Peter McCulloch (b.1933) British textile designer

    In the early 1960s, he taught at the Falmouth School of Art in Cornwall. Some of his textiles incorporated contrasting colors in small dots suggesting printed circuitry, as in his 1963 Cruachan fabric produced by Hull Traders.Read More →


    Read More →


  • Allan Walton (1891 – 1948) British painter, decorator, architect and textile designer

    Allan Walton (1891 – 1948) British painter, decorator, architect and textile designer

    He commissioned some of the most innovative screen prints of the 1930s, designed by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, as a principle of Allan Walton Fabrics. Read More →


    Read More →


  • Theo Moorman (1907 – 1990) British Weaver and Designer

    Theo Moorman (1907 – 1990) British Weaver and Designer

    Theo Moorman was a devoted artist with a lifetime of experience. She created her technique over a wide range of designs and textural combinations, exploring its potential. A new invention was every piece of work, and they were always full of vitality.Read More →


    Read More →


  • Eileen Ellis (b.1933) British textile designer

    Eileen Ellis (b.1933) British textile designer

    Between 1952 and 1954, Ellis was a textile department student at Central School of Arts & Crafts, specialising in weaving (she took a National Diploma in the subject).Read More →


    Read More →


  • Margaret Simeon (1910 – 1999) British Textile Designer

    Margaret Simeon (1910 – 1999) British Textile Designer

    She worked as a freelance designer of garment and furnishings textiles. Allan Walton Textiles, Edinburgh Weavers, Campbell Fabrics, and Fortnum and Mason were among her clientele. She taught textile printing at the Royal College of Art.Read More →


    Read More →


More design articles

❤️ Receive our newsletter

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.