Textile designs by Marian Mahler and Jacqueline Groag

Marian (Marianne) Mahler was born in Austria in 1908 to Jewish parents. She trained as an artist at Vienna’s University of Applied Arts, or Kunstgewerbeschule, from 1929 to 1932 and came to the UK in 1937, possibly due to rising antisemitism in Austria at that time.

In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria in the ‘Anschluss’ and Marian technically became a German citizen. At the outbreak of war in 1939, people from enemy countries were assessed to see if they posed a threat. The card shows the decision of the tribunal was that Marian was ‘not to be interned’.

The 1939 Register, a survey of England and Wales taken on 29 September that year, shows Marian living at 30 Sussex Gardens in Paddington and her occupation as ‘designer artist’. On the internee index card, dated 5 December 1939, she is living at the same address and her occupation is shown as ‘artist’.

This image is of a textile design by Marian Mahler, manufactured by David Whitehead Ltd and registered with the Board of Trade. The ‘registered design number’ 430905 can be seen in the top right-hand corner.

David Whitehead Ltd was based in Lancashire and built its reputation on bold, modern furnishing fabrics aimed at the younger consumer.

Marian had previously designed woven textiles for Edinburgh Weavers, including Helicon in 1949, which was used for upholstery on the Greek ocean liner TSS Olympia, and Romana in 1951, which was produced for a number of years.

She also designed textiles for Allan Walton, Helios, and Donald Brothers – firms similarly known for commissioning innovative designers. The companies were all known for the production of high-quality furnishing fabrics and their experimentation with texture, colour and print.

This image is of a black and white photograph of a textile design by Marian Mahler. The design was registered by David Whitehead Ltd under the displayed registered design number, 431382.

The design is known as Mobiles. Marian’s patterns often used geometric shapes in fluid designs, as this demonstrates. It features abstract, suspended shapes – ovals, crescents, and a U-shaped motif – arranged vertically to mirror the movement of hanging mobiles.

This design is one of a number from this period that was reproduced as wallpaper and fabric by Sanderson in the 2010s. Online examples have it with the U shape the way it is in our image, and also the other way up, like an arch.

This Marian Mahler design was officially untitled but is known as Linear Flowers. It was registered with the Board of Trade by textile manufacturers David Whitehead Ltd, giving it the ‘registered design’ number 434369.

Manufacturers like David Whitehead made bold, forward-looking, mid-20th-century textiles affordable to the postwar generation. Marian and her contemporaries such as Jacqueline Groag and Lucienne Day created a style that is still popular today.

Marian also worked as a commercial artist and book illustrator, designing the covers for Penguin’s British Shells, Fashion and Fashion Plates, A Book of Lilies, and Ballooning in 1943. The University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections holds a collection of her Penguin artwork.

This design by Marian Mahler is untitled but is commonly referred to as Bird and Chair, or Bird and Bowl. This image is of the black and white photograph presented when the design was registered by David Whitehead Ltd. The registered design number is shown as 434361.

The design is a playful grid-pattern of wiry forms that appear to be bowls, vases, birds and chairs. The wire shapes are reminiscent of chairs from the same period by Harry Bertoia and Charles & Ray Eames, some of which can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).

In 1947 Marian became a British citizen, and her naturalisation certificate is in our collection. She was living at 194 Goldhurst Terrace, London as an ‘Artist and Designer’. Her nationality is shown as Austrian.

Marian Mahler’s designs are in the V&A in London and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

This image shows the entry for Jacqueline Groag on the 1939 Register (visible at the very bottom). She is living at 15 St Peter’s Square in Hammersmith, London, with her husband, Jacques. Two other residents at the same address were the artist Bettina Ehrlich and her husband Georg, a sculptor, both from Vienna, Austria.

Jacqueline Groag was born Hilde Pick in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1903. Although her family was Jewish, Jacqueline did not follow the faith herself. She married young, becoming Hilde Blumberger, but was widowed at the age of 20.

Jacqueline moved to Vienna and in 1926 began studying at the University of Applied Arts, which Bettina and Georg had also attended (as would Marian Mahler).

While studying, Jacqueline was influenced by architect Josef Hoffmann and the artist and teacher Franz Cižek, who encouraged his students to approach design with the informality of a child.

This image shows a textile designed by Jacqueline Groag and produced by David Whitehead.

The architect Jack Pritchard gave Jacqueline and her husband Jacques a flat in his iconic modernist building, the Isokon – or Lawn Road – flats in Hampstead, London. Other famous residents during the 1940s and 50s included designer Marcel Breuer, writer Agatha Christie, and Austrian-British photographer and spy for the Soviet Union, Edith Tudor-Hart.

Jacqueline obtained commissions for her designs, often through associations with architects such as Dennis Lennon and Misha Black. She produced designs for the landmark V&A exhibition Britain Can Make It in 1946 and the Festival of Britain in 1951.

Jacqueline’s commissions included furnishing fabrics for David Whitehead and Edinburgh Weavers, dress prints for Grafton, wallpapers for John Line & Co, magazine covers for The Ambassador, and cards for Hallmark.

This image is of a textile design by Jacqueline Groag that was produced by manufacturers David Whitehead. It resembles earlier designs she had produced for the Festival of Britain in 1951.

Jacqueline was commissioned by Misha Black, one of the Festival’s coordinating architects, to design a 3D screen for the Living World section of the Dome of Discovery. She produced a sculptural piece with strings of 3D shell and pebble shapes that resembled an abacus.

Jacqueline also designed textiles for the Festival’s Information Centre and the Press Room at the Regatta restaurant. The Information Centre design, like the 3D screen for the Living World, has similarities to the design pictured here.

Correspondence and contracts relating to Jacqueline’s commissions are in The National Archives Festival of Britain collection.

This image shows a textile design by Jacqueline Groag that was produced by David Whitehead.

In 1948, John Murray, an architect with no textile training, was appointed as the Director of Furnishing Fabrics at David Whitehead. Where designers had previously been largely uncredited and often part of in-house teams, Murray commissioned outside designers like Marian Mahler, Jacqueline Groag and the young Terence Conran, and artists like John Piper and Roger Nicholson.

David Whitehead was quite possibly the largest contributor of furnishing fabrics to the Festival of Britain, with 20 designs chosen to be displayed – both in the exhibition site on the South Bank and on the touring Festival ship, the SS Campania.

This success was followed with more colourful and innovative designs by Groag, Mahler and their contemporaries, produced affordably for the British public.

This image is of a textile design by Jacqueline Groag, produced by David Whitehead.

Jacqueline became a British citizen in 1947. The National Archives has the naturalisation case papers for her and her husband Jacques, showing when and where they arrived in the UK, the languages they spoke, their occupations and the names of their guarantors (character references for the application process).

Jacqueline’s guarantor was Constance Paul, an Australian-born architect and interior designer who converted around 70 old London stables into mews homes.

Jacques’ guarantor was Berthold Lubetkin, a Russian-born British architect with many modernist buildings to his name, including the Gorilla House and Penguin Pool at London Zoo.

The National Archives has a naturalisation certificate for Jacques, but not for Jacqueline, because at this time a wife automatically took on the nationality of her husband.