John FORRESTER (1922-2002) Untitled, Red and Black (Porthia ...

Hammer

£250

John FORRESTER (1922-2002) Untitled, Red and Black (Porthia Prints, 1955) Screenprint on fabric, signed, 29 x 43cm, 44 x 53cm framed. A silkscreen design to the set of six table-mats produced by Porthia Prints in 1955. which Dennis Mitchell organised with Stanley Dorfman. The other artists involved were Peter Lanyon, Robert Adams, Barbara Hepworth, Roger Hilton and Mitchell himself, and their payment simply amounted to two dozen mats each (five of the mats and designs for all six were shown in the Redfern Gallery's 'Design' exhibition in 1986, nos 97a-110). The mats were available either as sets or individually, as Dorfman reported to Heal's (see correspondence dated 1 February 1955, in Heal's archives) that some customers bought only one or two, perhaps regarding them more as 'objets d'art' than as regular table linen. The novelty of using screenprinting for a form of applied design which could be treated as a work of art in its own right, had already been tried in the late forties by Zika and Lida Ascher, Czech textile designers working in Britain. - British Museum.