Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1924 Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago

Died: 2020 London, England

Year of Migration to the UK: 1951

Other name/s: Textile designer

Biography

Artist and textile designer, Althea McNish was born in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago, the only child of Margaret (née Bourne) a well-known dressmaker and the writer and publisher Joseph Claude McNish, on 15 May 1924. While still a student at Bishop Anstey High School, aged sixteen, McNish exhibited her first painting with the Trinidad Art Society. One of McNish’s first jobs was as a cartographer and illustrator for the British government.

In 1951, aged 27, McNish and her mother immigrated to London where her father was already working. She had a scholarship to study architecture at the Architectural Association (AA) but, shortly after arriving, she enrolled instead on a print course at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts, now the London College of Communication (LCC). Her interest in textiles was first awakened when she met the sculptor and printmaker Eduardo Paolozzi who taught textile design at the Central School of Art, who encouraged McNish to apply her printmaking skills to textiles rather than fine art. McNish subsequently studied textiles at the Royal College of Art (RCA) obtaining the full Diploma DesRCA in 1958. Arthur Stewart-Liberty, Chairman of London’s Liberty department store, immediately recognised McNish’s extraordinary use of colour. In 1958 he commissioned her to create designs for both fashion and furnishing fabrics. He also introduced her to Zika Ascher, a Czech émigré who, with his wife Lida, founded textile manufacturer, Ascher Ltd. McNish's designs – typically produced in printed silk – were chosen by many of Ascher's couture clients, notably Christian Dior, as well as by Heal's, and Danasco, establishing McNish as ‘Britain's first and most distinguished black textile designer’ (Lesley Jackson, cited in Pop Art and Design, 2018). McNish's versatile and striking designs, which combined natural imagery with vibrant colours, were also sought for wallpapers and architectural murals. She received commissions from wallpaper manufacturers, Sanderson-Rigg and the modern, postwar design agency, Design Research Unit, whose clients included British Rail and the Orient Steam Navigation Company. Their ship, the SS Oriana, launched in 1959, displayed restaurant murals by McNish, including Rayflowers. Her designs also featured frequently in magazine such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar.

In 1959 McNish married silversmith and jewellery designer John Weiss, descended from Jewish Polish immigrants. (His second marriage, they remained together until his death in 2018.) In the same year McNish began working for commercial design/furnishing company, Hull Traders, which specialised in short runs of artist-designed textiles. Between 1959 and 1964 lead designer Shirley Craven commissioned McNish to produce nine designs. One of McNish’s bestselling designs was 'Golden Harvest', inspired by a visit to the Great Bardfield, Essex home of painter and graphic artist Edward Bawden and his wife Charlotte, a potter. While walking in the countryside nearby, McNish encountered a wheat field for the first time, reminding her of the sugar cane plantations in her native Trinidad. This trip and the organic forms of the English countryside made a significant impression on the artist. That same year McNish produced Painted Desert – an example of which is now in the collection of the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston. McNish became known for always carrying an allen key when she visited textile mills where her work was being produced, so that she could change and adjust fittings on the silkscreen frames. She also reflected that, ‘Whenever printers told me it couldn’t be done, I would show them how to do it. Before long, the impossible became possible’ (Althea McNish, V & A website). In 1966, she designed fabrics for the official wardrobe for HRH Queen Elizabeth II when she visited Trinidad and the Caribbean. McNish was also a founding member of the Caribbean Artists’ Movement (CAM), active between 1966 and 1972, which sought to celebrate and promote the work of artists, writers, filmmakers and musicians from across the Caribbean to the British public.

In 1973 she featured in and designed the set for Full House, a BBC television programme on the Caribbean arts, which was produced by CAM founder, John La Rose. Her artwork featured in early landmark exhibitions such as Paintings by Trinidad and Tobago Artists held at the Commonwealth Institute in 1961, and The Way We Live Now presented at the V & A in 1978. The impact of her work on future generations of black British artists was recognised by her inclusion in the 2018 BBC documentary ‘Whoever Heard of a Black Artist?’ as well as the 2019 exhibition Get Up, Stand Up Now: Generations of Black Creative Pioneers at Somerset House and in Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now, Tate Britain (2021). McNish also endowed an annual award at the RCA. Anne Toomey, Head of Textiles at the RCA, considered that McNish's ‘contribution to the discipline is significant and she has been tremendously supportive of our graduating students over many years through her annual Prize for Colour’ (Anne Toomey, Royal College of Art website). Althea McNish died in London, England on 16 April 2020 at the age of 95. Her work is held in UK public collections including the V & A, London and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, among others.

Related books

Libby Sellers, Women Design: Pioneers in architecture, industrial, graphic and digital design from the twentieth century to the present day (London: Frances Lincoln, 2018)
Christine Checinska, Christine Checinska in Conversation with Althea McNish and John Weiss, Textile, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2018, pp. 186-199
Christine Checinska, Althea McNish and the British-African Diaspora, in Anne Massey and Alex Seago eds., Pop Art and Design (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), pp. 72-81
Roxy Harris and Sarah White (eds), Building Britannia: Life Experience With Britain: Dennis Bovell, Athea McNish, Gus John, Rev. Wilfred Wood, Aggrey Burke, Yvonne Brewster, Alexis Rennie (New Beacon Books, 2009)

Public collections

Related organisations

Architectural Association (employee)
Ascher (designer)
Balenciaga (designer)
Caribbean Artists' Movement (founder member)
Central School of Arts and Crafts (student)
Chartered Society of Designers (Fellow)
Design Research Unit (designer)
Dior (designer)
Heals (designer)
Harper's Bazaar (designer)
Hull Traders (designer)
Liberty (designer)
London School of Printing and Graphic Arts (student)
Royal College of Art (student)
Sanderson Rigg (designer)
UK Design Council (Board member)
Vogue (designer)

Selected exhibitions

Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now, Tate Britain (2021)
Hapticity, a Theory of Touch and Identity, group exhibition, Marcelle Joseph Projects, London (2021)
Get Up, Stand Up Now, Somerset House (2019)
RCA Black, Royal College of Art (2011)
Trade and Empire: Remembering Slavery, Whitworth Art Gallery (2007)
Six into One: Artists from the Caribbean, Morley Gallery (1998)
Althea McNish, Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art (1997)
Trinidad and Tobago Through the Eye of the Artist: From Cazabon to the New Millennium 1813–2000, Commonwealth Institute (1997)
Caribbean Connection 2: Island Pulse, Islington Arts Factory (1996)
Make or Break. Henry Moore Gallery (1986)
Althea McNish, People's Gallery (1982)
The Way We Live Now, Victoria and Albert Museum (1978)
Afro-Caribbean Art, Artists Market (1978)
Caribbean Artists in England, Commonwealth Institute (1971)
Caribbean Artists Movement, Digby Stuart College, House of Commons and London School of Economics (1968)
Caribbean Artists Movement, Theatre Royal, Stratford (1967)
Paintings by Trinidad and Tobago Artists, Commonwealth Institute (1961)
Althea McNish, Woodstock Gallery (1958)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Althea McNish]