Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1910 Prague, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic)

Died: 1992 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1939

Other name/s: Zikmund Ascher

Biography

Textile designer and artist Zika (Zikmund) Ascher was born to Jewish parents in Prague, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic) in 1910. A talented skier, Ascher represented his country in downhill skiing in Hitler's Winter Olympics 1936 in Garmish-Partenkirchen and competed in three world championships in 1935, 1937, and 1938, when he won the Grand Prix. He was known as 'Šílený hedvábník' ('the Mad Silkman') on the slopes, a nod to his family's textile business. In the 1930s Ascher and his brother Josef established their own textile business in central Prague. In 1938, he met Lida Tydlitatova when she entered the textile store and they married in 1939. Lida's mother was fiercely anti-Semitic and opposed to the couple, hence Ascher converted to Catholicism on 22 December 1938, two months before the marriage. After the wedding, Ascher and Lida immediately left for their honeymoon in Norway. They were unable to return home after the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 and travelled from Norway to Newcastle, England. The couple's immigration was supported by letters of recommendation from the members of the Ski Club of Great Britain.

By 20 March 1939, they had moved to central London and were living near Marylebone Road. In 1940 Ascher enlisted in the British Army but was medically discharged. In November 1941 Ascher and Lida established their own textile company, Ascher London, on Regent Street, which straddled the worlds of art and fashion; as Ascher's grandson Sam observed in 2010: '[...] when Zika began it was utterly avant-garde. No-one had thought of mixing fine art with industry, let alone commissioning artists for fashion. He was a true innovator' (Davies 2010). In 1943, Ascher commissioned Polish artist Feliks Topolski, also trapped in England and unable to return to his homeland, to provide designs for his fabrics. Ascher's son Peter recalled that there was a natural affinity between the two émigrés: 'One was a bloody-minded Czech, the other a bloody-minded Pole. Over suppers of boiled beef, creamed sauces and dumplings, cooked by my mother, they would argue in a mixture of Polish, Czech and English' (Davies 2010). Topolski signed a two-year contract with Ascher and produced 20 designs a year for the company. In 1946, while in Paris, Ascher contacted Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, and André Derain, asking each to provide a design for a printed silk scarf, the only limitation being a maximum size of 90 cm square. Eventually, 51 leading French and British artists, including Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Cecil Beaton and Graham Sutherland, produced designs (though Oskar Kokoschka and Marc Chagall declined); called 'Artists' Squares', they were launched at 'Britain Can Make It', the first post-war exhibition held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 1946. Printed in limited editions in Ascher's own printworks, they were a huge commercial success for the business; the scarves were also shown with London's prestigious Lefevre Gallery (1947 and 1950), with an accompanying catalogue foreworded by writer, Sacheverell Sitwell. By 1976, Ascher was printing as many as 2000 scarves daily to keep up with demand. From 1946, Ascher also designed and produced hand-printed fabrics for international couturiers such as Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent, his designs featuring on the covers of Vogue and Harper's magazines, while the Jewish Chronicle regularly reviewed his eponymous collections. In 1947 Princess Elizabeth wore an Ascher fabric on her tour of Australia.

In 1977, Ascher's son Peter, who had worked for his father, established his own business in New York, though he frequently had to funnel funds back to Ascher in London, struggling due to strikes and overspending. Ascher died in 1992 in London. He worked late into his life, stating in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph Magazine (1983) that 'I never think of sitting back and doing nothing. Of what possible interest could that be to anyone?' However, the firm remained within the family and was relaunched under the reins of Ascher's grandson, Sam, in 2010, as reported in The Telegraph. Examples of Ascher's textiles are held in UK public collections, including the V&A, British Museum, and Henry Moore Institute, Leeds. In 2019, Peter Ascher wrote and published a book about his parent's textile business entitled The Mad Silkman: Zika and Lida Ascher Textiles and Fashion which was coupled with an exhibition held in Prague to showcase their work and highlight their significant contribution to the world of fashion. A portrait photograph of Ascher was taken by fellow émigré, John Gay, which is held in the national Portrait gallery collection.

Related books

Konstantina Hlavackova and Peter Ascher, Ascher: The Mad Silkman (Slovart Publishing Ltd, 2019)
Anita Feldman, 'Henry Moore Textiles', (London: Lund Humphries, 2008)
The Vogue History of Twentieth-Century Fashion by Jane Mulvagh (London: Viking Penguin, 1988)
Valerie D. Mendes and Frances Hinchcliffe, Ascher: Fabric, Art, Fashion (V&A Publications, 1987)

Public collections

Related organisations

Ascher (London) Ltd (owner)

Selected exhibitions

Šílený hedvábník – The Mad Silkman, The Museum of Applied Arts, Prague (2019)
Artist Textiles Picasso to Warhol, Fashion and Textile Museum, London (2014)
Henry Moore Textiles, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norfolk (2010)
Henry Moore Textiles, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (2009–10)
Henry Moore and Ascher, Redfern Gallery, London (1991)
Ascher: fabric, art, fashion, Victoria and Albert Museum, London (1987)
Ascher Textiles, Redfern Gallery, London (1983)
Ascher Squares, American British Art Center, New York (1947)
S.V.U. Mánes – The Mánes Association of Fine Artists, Prague (1947)
Ascher Panels, Ascher Squares Lefevre Gallery, London (1947)
Britain Can Make It, The Victoria & Albert Museum, London (1946)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Zika Ascher]