Textile Design with Undulating Branches with Leaves and Stylized Flowers over a Checked Background

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 a checked background with intersecting vertical and horizontal blue stripes upon which stand out undulating green branches with leaves and a variety of stylized flowers: large yellow flowers with red pistils and several layers of petals that could have been inspired on camellias, bundles of smaller rosettes with red and pink petals and yellow and dark blue pistils that emerge from fark blue branches with leaves, and bundles of even smaller red and yellow rosettes and flower buds on dark blue branches with leaves. This design presents a playful re-interpretation of "chintz" textile designs, by using flowers other than roses over a checked background, a trend that was particularly important in the production of American textiles during the 1930s and 1940s.