Marianne Straub

Marianne Straub
OBE
Marianne Straub
Born(1909-09-23)23 September 1909
Amriswil, Switzerland
Died8 November 1994(1994-11-08) (aged 85)[1]
Berlingen, Switzerland.[2]
Occupation(s)Textile designer, academic
Notable credit(s)Royal Designer for Industry (1972); Misha Black Medal (1993), OBE[3]

Marianne Straub OBE (23 September 1909 – 8 November 1994) was one of the leading commercial designers of textiles in Britain in the period from the 1940s to 1960s. She said her overriding aim was: "to design things which people could afford. ... To remain a handweaver did not seem satisfactory in this age of mass-production".[4]

Linda Parry, curator of modern textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum, described her in 1990 as one of two or three British artists who used their great ability to serve industry.[4]

Although she became a leading name in industrial design – creating upholstery for everything from London Underground to BEA aircraft – she almost always developed her ideas on a handloom before applying her technical knowhow to their manufacture. She believed that if more designers tried out their ideas first, there would be fewer bad results.[4]

  1. ^ Coatts, Margot (1997). Pioneers of Modern Craft. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 84–94. ISBN 0719050588.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference ODNB Schoeser was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Past Royal Designers". rsa.org. RSA. 13 August 2013. Archived from the original on 26 July 2014. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  4. ^ a b c Andreae, Christopher (7 August 1990). "Creating artwork to sit upon". Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 16 July 2014.