Textile Design with White Scrolling Branches with Stylized Flowers and Leaves over a Blue Striped 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 scrolling branches with leaves, flower buds and rosettes over a blue striped background consisting of pairs of blue and dark blue vertical lines separated by groups of thin white and dark blue lines over a blue ground. The branches and flowers are colored depending on where they are located in the design: when standing over the dark blue and blue stripes, they are of white color, and the flowers have pink pistils with dotted dark blue outlines; when standing over the groups of thin vertical lines, they are rendered with blue, and have shadows created by dark blue vertical lines emerging from the bottom of the flowers, leaves and flower buds. This design presents a playful re-interpretation of "chintz" textile designs, by using flowers other than roses over a striped background, a trend that was particularly important in the production of American textiles during the 1930s and 1940s.