Textile Design with Large Roses and Rectangular Frames with Small Flowers

Vertical panel with a textile design that is part of a group of 266 textile designs by the American artist Robert Bryer, possibly made for United Designing Co., since most of the designs carry a stamp of the "United Designing Co. / WOrth 4 - 8975". Some of them also contain a stamp in the verso of the "Original Designing Company, Inc."

The collection contains a great variety of designs, from the more traditional floral and stripe patterns, to thematic designs based on various travel destinations, with palm trees and other holiday attributes. Especially interesting among these are patterns inspired by textiles and paintings of Native American tribes, including the Inca, Navajo, Aztec and Maya. The patterns are composed of semi-abstract figures distributed across the design in a regular or, in some cases, a more casual fashion. The spontaneity of designs and the use of floral and animal motifs suggest they were created for printed textiles in the forties.


This textile design is made up of rectangular frames made up of a dark blue 'L' shape and decorated with four small stylized flowers over a light blue background surrounded by large pink roses with blue stems and leaves. The design is left unfinished, showing a rectangle traced with graphite that is not completely filled by the design motifs, as well as some of the frames partially traced with graphite, only one containing some quick sketches of the flowers that would be inside. This design reflects the re-creation of "chintz" motifs that took place in the production of American textiles during the 1930s and 1940s, by using the traditionally used roses in an alternative way, as decorations for other figurative motifs.