Textile Design with White, Blue and Red Stylized Flowers

Robert Bryer American

Not on view

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 different types of large stylized flowers with yellow pistils and white stems with dark blue leaves, some of them with white petals and some with light blue petals with a network of slightly darked blue lines, to make the petals seem 'cracked', and small rosettes with five red petals, dark blue round centers and dark blue stems with leaves on a blue ground. This design presents a play on traditional "chintz" textile motifs that was common in the production of American textiles during the 1930s and 1940s.

No image available

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.