Enid Marx

About the
Exhibition

This major exhibition will be the first ever to highlight the importance of Enid Marx (1902-1998) as a textile designer and showcase the influence of her community on the development of modern British design in the 20th century.
Marx is arguably best known as the designer of woven London Underground (Tube) seat moquette fabric and as an illustrator of children’s books. However, she was also an extensive producer of hand block-printed textiles (ca.1925-1940) and later designs for fabrics woven for the public (1936-1947).

Whilst the works on Marx’s male contemporaries, such as Eric Ravilious, Paul Nash, Bernard Leach and Roger Fry, are well known, Marx’s close community of craftswomen and designers has often been sidelined. Their approaches to handmade pattern in blocked and woven textiles and ceramics present an overlooked quality of modern British art and design which variously acted as personal expression and a queer camouflage of double-meanings best known to themselves.

Compton Verney is the permanent home of the Marx-Lambert Collection, created by Enid Marx and her life partner, Margaret Lambert (1906-1995). Together, they amassed an assortment of ‘Popular Art’ into a collection that interwove personal and professional artistic, social, and political histories.
From a sample of lace taken from her mother’s wedding dress, a block-printed pattern and dress made for Lambert, to plush Tube seat upholstery; this major exhibition will be the first to present Marx’s life as a cultural history of the period through her fabrics.

The exhibition draws from new research undertaken over ten years by Dr Az Crawford, focusing on the significance of Marx’s textiles within the geopolitics of British design and the lasting influence of her work.