Marianne Straub was born in Amriswil, Switzerland in 1909 and, as Swiss technical colleges did not admit female students, in 1932 she moved to England to study powerloom weaving at Bradford Technical College. She later worked for textile firms such as Helios and Warner & Sons, becoming one of Britain’s most influential designer/weavers; among her designs were those produced for London Underground, the Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liner, and BEA’s Trident aircraft. After retirement, she continued to teach in London at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, Hornsey College of Arts and Crafts, and the Royal College of Art.
Textile designer Marianne Straub was born in the village of Amriswil, Switzerland in 1909, the daughter of a textile yarn merchant. She developed her passion for textiles independently from her father’s business, while living in a tubercular ward from the age of three and a half to eight. In 1928 she enrolled at the Zurich Kunstgewerbeschule, where she was taught by ex-Bauhaus weaver Heinz Otto Hurlimann, and determined to become an industrial designer.
Since Swiss technical colleges did not admit female students, Straub came to Britain in 1932 to attend Bradford Technical College in Yorkshire, where she first learnt powerloom weaving. She was the only female student at the time, and the third in the history of the college. In 1933 she joined Gospels, the textile workshop in Ditchling, Sussex, run by weaver Ethel Mairet, who remained a lifelong friend. During her nine months there, she learnt hand-spinning and natural dyeing, and in return developed new cloths for the firm. Straub strongly believed that standards in industry could be raised by the production of hand-woven prototypes and between 1934–37 she worked as consultant designer to 72 Welsh woollen mills supported by the Rural Industries Bureau, designing more than 100 cloths a year. In 1937 she took up a post as head designer (1937–50), then managing director (1947–50) at Helios, an independent subsidiary of the Lancashire firm Barlow & Jones Ltd, for which she designed mass-produced textiles of excellent quality and design. In 1946 her furnishing fabrics were included in the landmark exhibition Britain Can Make it, held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. From 1950–70 Straub worked for Warner & Sons Ltd, Braintree, Essex, one of the best-known producers of high quality domestic woven and printed furnishing fabrics, living nearby in Great Bardfield. The village had hosted a thriving community of artists since the 1930s, and in 1955 a number, including Straub, Michael Rothenstein, John Aldridge, Walter Hoyle, George Chapman and David Low opened their homes to the public to show their work. The Times noted that Straub’s ‘designs are astonishingly rich in beauty and invention, and yet always robust, practical and, in the very best sense, commercially valid. And the visitor will hardly be able to leave Miss Straub’s cottage without dreaming of radical alterations to the interior decoration of his own home. (The Times, 8 July, 1955, p. 4). One of the most iconic designs Straub produced for Warner was ‘Helmsley’. This dobby-woven nylon textile, inspired by crystal-structure diagrams representing the arrangements of atoms in various substances, was utilised for the curtains of the Regatta Restaurant on the South Bank at the 1951 Festival of Britain.
From 1963 Straub collaborated with Isabel Tisdall, who had just founded Tamesa Fabrics, designing the majority of woven fabrics for the new firm. Several fabrics that Straub designed for Warner were commissioned by Misha Black of the Design Research Unit (DRU), one of the first design practices which united practical expertise and new thinking in design, architecture and graphics. Most of Straub’s designs for Black were for use in the interiors of ships, such as the SS Oriana in 1960. Around.1965 Black also commissioned Straub to design a moquette (hard-wearing woollen fabric) for London Transport; she produced a geometric pattern featuring blue and green rectangles, which was manufactured by John Holdsworth and Co. Ltd and Firths Furnishing Ltd. Intended for use on the Victoria line, it was not ready in time, so an existing design was used instead. Straub’s design was eventually used on the Northern and Bakerloo lines, as well as on London Transport buses during the 1970s and on British Rail. Straub also produced designs for the Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liner and BEA’s Trident aircraft (including seat covers). SHe worked for notable furniture makers including Ercolani, Heal's, Parker Knoll, Ernest Race Ltd, and Gordon Russell Ltd. She also produced designs for the London department store, Liberty & Co. After retirement, she moved to Cambridge and alongside her freelance work as a designer, she devoted herself to teaching in London: as a part-time head of woven textiles at the Central School of Arts and Crafts (1956–64); Hornsey College of Arts and Crafts (1964–8) and the Royal College of Art (RCA, 1964–8), latterly lecturing all over the world. In 1972 Straub was the first recipient of the Textile Institute design medal and was awarded the honour 'Royal Designer for Industry' (RDI). In 1977 she became a founder trustee of the Bath Craft Study Centre. Straub returned to Switzerland in 1992, at the end of her life, having been awarded honorary doctorates from the RCA and Manchester University, honorary fellowship of the Textile Institute and the Royal Society of Arts' (RSA) Misha Black Medal. Straub published Hand Weaving and Cloth Design (Viking, 1977). In 1985 she was appointed OBE. To mark Straub’s fiftieth year as a designer the RSA held the first retrospective exhibition of her work in 1984, which then toured the UK. Marianne Straub died in Berlingen, Switzerland in 1994. Her work is held in UK public collections including the Fry Gallery, Saffron Walden; London Transport Museum and V&A, London.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Marianne Straub]
Publications related to [Marianne Straub] in the Ben Uri Library