Althea McNish
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Althea McNish
Althea McNish (1924–2020) was an artist from Trinidad who became the first Black British textile designer to earn an international reputation. Born in Trinidad, McNish moved to Britain in the 1950s. She was associated with the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) in the 1960s, participating in CAM's exhibitions and seminars and helping to promote Caribbean arts to a British public. Her work is represented in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Whitworth Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture and the Cooper-Hewitt (Smithsonian Design Museum), among other places. McNish was a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers. She was married to the jewellery designer John Weiss (1933–2018).Tessler, Gloria (13 December 2018)"Obituary: John Saul Weiss" ''Jewish Chronicle''. Background Early years Althea Marjorie McNish was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, around 1933. Her father, the writer Joseph Claude McNish, was ...
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Chartered Society Of Designers
The Chartered Society of Designers (CSD) is a professional body for designers. It is the only Royal Chartered body of experienced designers. Its membership is multi-disciplinary – representing designers in all design, disciplines including Interior Design, Product Design, Graphic Design, Fashion and Textile Design. Founded in 1930 as Society of Industrial Artists, the Society is governed by Royal Charter (granted in 1976). Members are obliged by a Code of Conduct to practice to the highest professional standards. CSD is a registered charity (UK Registered Charity Number 279393). Its Royal Patron was Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. CSD is not a trade body/association and functions as a learned society. Membership in the Society is awarded to qualified designers who demonstrate competence against CPSK (TM) (Creativity, Professionalism, Skills and Knowledge). Members are identified using the post-nominal letters, MCSD (TM) or FCSD (TM) (indicating Member or Fellow, respecti ...
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Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmost island in the West Indies. With an area of , it is also the List of Caribbean islands by area, fifth largest in the West Indies. Name The original name for the island in the Arawak language, Arawaks' language was which meant "Land of the Hummingbird". Christopher Columbus renamed it ('The Island of the Holy Trinity, Trinity'), fulfilling a vow he had made before setting out on his third voyage. This has since been shortened to ''Trinidad''. History Island Caribs, Caribs and Arawaks lived in Trinidad long before Christopher Columbus encountered the islands on his third voyage on 31 July 1498. The island remained Spanish until 1797, but it was largely settled by French colonists from the French Caribbean, especially Martinique.Besson, ...
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Zika Ascher
Zika Ascher (3 April 1910 – 5 September 1992), born Zikmund Ascher and nicknamed "The Mad Silkman", was a Czech Republic, Czech textile businessman, artist and designer who became pre-eminent in the related fields of United Kingdom, British textiles, art, and fashion. He created his own textile company, which made its name with experimental fabrics and scarves designed by famous contemporary artists. Background and family Ascher was born in Prague in a family of rich Jewish textile businessmen. He excelled as young successful skiing champion and he began his career of textile businessman. In February 1939 he married his wife Lida, Ludmila born Tydlitátová (*1913 Prague), coming from a Catholic family as the youngest of 6 children (3 daughters), educated on the secondary school of trade and economy. The same year they moved to United Kingdom, England, because Czechoslovakia was annexed by Germany. In 1940 Zika entered the British army. In 1942, Zika and Lida Ascher set up t ...
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Liberty (department Store)
Liberty, commonly known as Liberty's, is a luxury department store in London, England. It is located on Great Marlborough Street in the West End of London. The building spans from Carnaby Street on the East to Kingly Street on the West, where it forms a three storey archway over the Northern entrance to the Kingly Street mall that houses the Liberty Clock in its centre. Liberty is known around the world for its close connection to art and culture, it is most famous for its bold and floral print fabrics. The vast mock-Tudor store also sells men's, women's and children's fashion, beauty and homewares from a mix of high-end and emerging brands and labels. The store is known to spot and champion young designers at the start of their careers, and many now-prominent brands were first available at Liberty. The store played essential role in spreading and popularizing the Modern Style. This continues Liberty's long reputation for working with British artists and designers. History Ea ...
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Hugh Casson
Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson (23 May 1910 – 15 August 1999) was a British architect. He was also active as an interior designer, as an artist, and as a writer and broadcaster on twentieth-century design. He was the director of architecture for the Festival of Britain on the South Bank in 1951. From 1976 to 1984, he was president of the Royal Academy. Life Casson was born in London on 23 May 1910, spending his early years in Burma—where his father was posted with the Indian Civil Service—before being sent back to England for schooling. He was the nephew of actor, Sir Lewis Casson and his wife, the actress Sybil Thorndike. Casson studied at Eastbourne College in East Sussex, then St John's College, Cambridge (1929–31), after which he spent time at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London and The British School in Athens. He met his future wife, Margaret Macdonald Troup (1913-1995), an architect and designer who taught design at the Royal College of Art, while they ...
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Eduardo Paolozzi
Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi (, ; 7 March 1924 – 22 April 2005) was a Scottish artist, known for his sculpture and graphic works. He is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of pop art. Early years Eduardo Paolozzi was born on 7 March 1924, in Leith in north Edinburgh, Scotland, and was the eldest son of Italian immigrants. His family was from Viticuso, in the Lazio region. Paolozzi’s parents, Rodolfo and Carmela, ran an ice cream shop. Paolozzi used to spend all his summers at his grandparents place in Monte Cassino and grew up bilingual. In June 1940, when Italy declared war on the United Kingdom, Paolozzi was interned (along with most other Italian men in Britain). During his three-month internment at Saughton prison his father, grandfather and uncle, who had also been detained, were among the 446 Italians who drowned when the ship carrying them to Canada, the ''Arandora Star'', was sunk by a German U-boat. Paolozzi studied at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1943, b ...
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Bedford Square
Bedford Square is a garden square in the Bloomsbury district of the Borough of Camden in London, England. History Built between 1775 and 1783 as an upper middle class residential area, the square has had many distinguished residents, including Lord Eldon, one of Britain's longest serving and most celebrated Lord Chancellors, who lived in the largest house in the square for many years. The square takes its name from the main title of the Russell family, the Dukes of Bedford, who owned much of the land in what is now Bloomsbury. The architect Thomas Leverton is known to have designed some of the houses, although he may not have been responsible for all of them. The building agreements for Bedford Square were signed by the trustees of the late Duke of Bedford and William Scott and Robert Grews, the builders, in 1776. The first leases, for the entire west side (Nos. 28–39), were granted in November 1776. It seems unlikely that these dozen houses were built within 11 months ...
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Architectural Association School Of Architecture
The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest Independent school (United Kingdom), independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme of exhibitions, lectures, academic conference, symposia and publications have given it a central position in global discussions and developments within contemporary architectural culture. History The Architectural Association was founded in 1847 as an alternative to the practice of training aspiring young men by apprenticeship to established architects. This practice offered no guarantee for educational quality or professional standards, and there was a belief that the system was open to Conflict of interest, vested interests, abuse, dishonesty and incompetence.Edward BottomsIntroductory lecture to AA Archives February 2010 This situation led two articled pupils, Robert Kerr (architect), Robert Kerr ( ...
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New Beacon Books
New Beacon Books is a British publishing house, bookshop, and international book service that specializes in Black British, Caribbean, African, African-American and Asian literature. Founded in 1966 by John La Rose and Sarah White, it was the first Caribbean publishing house in England. New Beacon Books is widely recognized as having played an important role in the Caribbean Artists Movement, and in Black British culture more generally. The associated George Padmore Institute (GPI) is located on the upper floors of the same building where the bookshop resides at 76 Stroud Green Road, Finsbury Park, London. History New Beacon Books started out as a publishing house that was run out of the Hornsey, North London, flat of John La Rose and Sarah White. It was named after the Trinidadian journal '' The Beacon'', which was published between 1931 and 1932. In 1967, La Rose and White moved New Beacon Books to new premises, in Finsbury Park, where the company also began to function as ...
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Anne Walmsley
Anne Walmsley (born 1931) is a British-born editor, scholar, critic and author, notable as a specialist in Caribbean art and literature, whose career spans five decades. She is widely recognised for her work as Longman's Caribbean publisher, and for Caribbean books that she authored and edited. Her pioneering school anthology, ''The Sun's Eye: West Indian Writing for Young Readers'' (1968), drew on her use of local literary material while teaching in Jamaica. A participant in and chronicler of the Caribbean Artists Movement, Walmsley is also the author of ''The Caribbean Artists Movement: A Literary and Cultural History, 1966–1971'' (1992) and ''Art in the Caribbean'' (2010). She lives in London. Education and career Anne Walmsley has a BA in English from Durham University, and an MA in African Studies from Sussex University.Eddie Chambers (artist), Eddie Chambers''Black Artists in British Art: A History from 1950 to the Present'' I.B.Tauris, 2014, Note 35, pp. 214–215. In the ...
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Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include Trees and Undergrowth (Van Gogh series), landscapes, Still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh (Paris), still lifes, Portraits by Vincent van Gogh, portraits and Portraits of Vincent van Gogh, self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive paintwork, brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. Not commercially successful, he struggled with severe depression and poverty, eventually leading to his suicide at age thirty-seven. Born into an upper-middle class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet, and thoughtful. As a young man, he worked as an ar ...
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Boscoe Holder
Boscoe Holder (16 July 1921 – 21 April 2007), born Arthur Aldwyn Holder in Arima, Trinidad and Tobago, was Trinidad and Tobago's leading contemporary painter, who also had a celebrated international career spanning six decades as a designer and visual artist, dancer, choreographer and musician. Living in London, England, during the 1950s and 1960s, Boscoe Holder has been credited with introducing limbo dancing and steel-pan playing to Britain,Peggy Schwartz and Murray Schwartz''The Dance Claimed Me: A Biography of Pearl Primus'' Yale University Press, 2011, p. 117. performing on British television and radio, in variety and nightclubs, in films, and at well-known theatres in the West End. His company also danced for Queen Elizabeth II at her coronation in 1953, and, two years later, at Windsor Castle.Christian Holder"Boscoe Holder" (obituary) ''The Stage'', 1 June 2007. He is considered one of the top painters from the Caribbean whose work is in many collections around the world ...
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