Bernat Klein was born into a Serbian-Jewish family in Senta, Austria-Hungary (now Serbia) in 1922. He was educated at a yeshiva in Czechoslovakia, and was later sent by his parents to Jerusalem, where he attended the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts rather than pursuing rabbinical studies. After the war he arrived in Britain in 1945 to study textile technology at Leeds University, subsequently becoming a renowned textile designer and painter, first establishing a weaving mill in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, followed by a hand-knitting business, with more than 200 workers, near Selkirk.
Textile designer and artist, Bernat Klein was born in Senta, Austria-Hungary (now Serbia) in 1922, the son of orthodox Jews parents who ran a wholesale textile business. Klein was educated at a yeshiva in Czechoslovakia, until the age of 16 when, in anticipation of the outbreak of the Second World War, his parents sent him to Jerusalem, where he attended the renowned Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, rather than pursuing rabbinical studies. In Jerusalem Klein was recruited by the British and was sent to Cairo in Egypt to monitor and translate signals. He arrived in Britain in 1945 after the war to study textile technology at Leeds University. Klein’s father survived the Holocaust, but his mother was murdered in Auschwitz.
Klein moved to the Scottish Borders in 1950, when the firm he was working for, Munrospun, relocated from Edinburgh to Galashiels. In 1952 he established Colourcraft, his own luxury textile enterprise, based in Galashiels, which eventually employed some 600 workers. In 1966 he sold his shares and left the company, setting up a hand-knitting business, with more than 200 workers, near Selkirk, producing clothing collections, as well as upholstery and carpets. Inspired by the pointillist painter Georges Seurat, he attempted to create an impressionist effect in fabric by dip-dyeing wool to create dots of colour. Klein’s clothes had simple shapes unlikely to go out of fashion; he was convinced that their principal appeal was the fabric from which they were made, and wanted the impact to be in his fluid, free swirling designs, characterised by subtle and complex colouring. In 1962, Klein's loosely-woven fabric, incorporating mohair and vibrantly coloured ribbon, featured in Chanel's collection, and was soon taken up by other couture houses, such as Dior, Balenciaga, Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent. Klein was praised by Vogue for having ‘revolutionised traditional English fabrics to win them new recognition abroad’ (The Times, 6 November 2012), and his bold and visionary use of colour blending and texture had a long-lasting impact, both nationally and internationally. The Jewish Chronicle reviewed and advertised his designs for various couture houses, including Guy Laroche and Nina Ricci, over two decades, describing Klein perhaps surprisingly as 'a British genius' (17 September 1965). Klein also designed textiles for furniture and interiors and, in the 1970s, with the aim of raising the standards of design in Government buildings, he was commissioned to design upholstery and curtain fabrics for the Department of the Environment. For a period, Klein produced designs for the firm, Tootal, as well as scarves and mohair stoles for Marks and Spencer and other chain stores. Klein also practised as an artist, experimenting with oils and collage, and in 1971 he collaborated with Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh on a series of ten wool tapestries. The following year, the O’Hana Gallery in London held an exhibition of Klein’s work, which included canvases covered by thick slabs of paint, and tapestries composed of twisted and uneven pieces of cloth, modified by layers of paint. Both tweeds and printed fabrics were derived from Klein’s abstract oil paintings and his collages of paint and fabric, and these in turn were inspired by the colour and atmosphere of the Scottish Borders landscape around his home. In the 1970s Klein produced ready to wear collections and created printed synthetic jersey based on his paintings. Klein’s wife Margaret directed the small shop in Galashiels called 'Present Time', the one place where it was possible to buy the clothing directly (otherwise available only by mail order).
Klein was appointed CBE in 1973. In the same year, his studio, designed by modernist architect Peter Womersley, won a RIBA architecture award, and is now an A-listed building. Klein was a member of the Scottish committee of the Council of Industrial Design (1965–71) and of the Royal Fine Art Commission for Scotland (1980–87), retiring in 1992. He also wrote a memoir Bernat Klein: an Eye for Colour (1965) and Design Matters (1976). Klein died in Selkirk, Scotland in 2014. His archive – consisting of more than 1,800 items ranging from sketches for his designs to finished garments, photographs, catalogues, paintings and tapestries – was acquired by National Museums Scotland. In 2015, the Dovecot Gallery, Edinburgh celebrated the life and work of Klein in the exhibition Bernat Klein: A Life in Colour, featuring, among other works, Red Transition and Provençal Scarlet, highly coloured pieces incorporating oil paint with polyester and tweed. Other exhibitions were subsequently held at the Studio Pavilion, Glasgow and in the Margaret Howell store, London (2017). The Bernat Klein Foundation was established in 2017, to promote and develop the designer's legacy. Klein's work is represented at the Victoria and Albert Museum and National Museum of Scotland, among others.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Bernat Klein]
Publications related to [Bernat Klein] in the Ben Uri Library