Double Weave: Bourne + Allen's Modernist Textiles

About

This Autumn, Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft will be marking ten years since its major redevelopment with an exhibition about the museum's co-founder Hilary Bourne (1909-2004) and Barbara Allen (1903-1972), her partner in life and creative practice.

The pair ran an internationally successful textile studio, designing and making a variety of fabrics - tweed for Fortnum & Mason, furnishing fabrics for Heals and scarves for Liberty's.  The turning point in their career came in 1951, when they won the competition to design and make curtains for the newly built Festival Hall.  They went on to win commissions to make the costumes for the multi-Oscar winning 1959 film Ben-Hur and the interiors of the Uk's first jet planes.  

In short, they were two of the most significant textile designers of the modernist period, yet they remain largely unknown - until now. The exhibition will give space to their story.  It will speak to the invisibility of women as leading modernist designers, as well as how women's intimacy informs creative pursuits.