Peter Collingwood - Design Masters New York Tuesday, December 13, 2011 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance

    Commissioned by the Council of Industrial Design as a gift marking the retirement of its Director, Sir Gordon Russell; presented January 5, 1960 and subsequently hung on the landing of his Cotswold house “Kingcombe,” Broadway, UK

  • Literature

    Peter Collingwood, “A Weaving Project,” The Quarterly Journal of the Guilds for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, Journal No. 33, March 1960, pp. 115–122 for an extensive explanation of the commission; Peter Collingwood: Master Weaver, exh. cat.,The Minories Art Gallery, Colchester, 1998, p. 4 for a detail and p. 18

  • Catalogue Essay

    Collingwood recalled that while making the present lot he first tied warp threads to heddles in order to change the design as he went along. He stated in The Journal for Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, “I had no sketch to follow and made all decisions about the design as I went along. But also as I went along I sketched to scale what I had woven… Although I had over sixty colours I used two or three together, the actual combinations used were far greater in number and they were changing every few inches in both the blocks and the ground… It was for me a real excitement to put this almost barbaric pink against the brightest orange-red – it made the optic nerves dance a jig. In fact, throughout, my object was so to combine the colours that they glowed. This can only be done if all muddy colours are excluded. Only pure colours have the power to produce this effect, when seen in isolation these colours may be called crude by some but when placed together appropriately they react on each other and produce this exciting glow. There is an element of dissonance in this sort of combination, that touch of dissonance that puts the excitement into a Debussy chord that is lacking in an English Hymnal chord.”

31

Important unique wall hanging, for Sir Gordon Russell

1959
Blockweave, hand-dyed Wilton wool, genappe yarn, Icelandic worsted wool and vat-dyed mercerised linen in over 60 colors.
119 5/8 × 88 5/8 in. (304 × 225 cm.)
Three panels containing the lettering“G.R,” “CoICD” and “1944–1959.”

Estimate
$20,000 - 30,000 

Design Masters

13 December 2011
New York