Vintage Wall Art Coral
Printed on high quality 300grm Tinatone grosso tex card and supplied unframed.
Accompanied with a document explaining origin and history of the design.
Overall size 46 x 32cm (A3).
Internal image dimension 39.5 x 30cm (w x h)
Coral Point Paper
Date: 1949
Origin: Bradford, UK
Coral design(ref: ESS 201) was created by furnishing fabric weaver E&S Smith, when they were based at Aireworth Mill, Marley, Keighley in 1947. Edward Smith had had the foresight to travel regularly over the Pennines to Manchester during the 2nd world war years where he met with the War Ministry. He obtained several contracts for weaving parachute and blackout utility furnishings.
Furnishing fabric was rationed but as a familiar face, his company was awarded several manufacturing and wholesale licences after the war ended. In 1945 retailers and members of the public struggled to find weavers and suppliers so Edward, armed with the correct certificates to supply, found he was inundated with orders and needed to sub contract demand for woven goods.
Coral is one of a number of ‘best sellers’ sold through a beneficiary of one of Edward’s wholesale licences. Messer. A. L Wilkinson, who were based in the nearby city of Bradford, employed textile designers and card cutters and relied on Edward to do the weaving of ‘their’ fabric which they then distributed.
Within the A.L Wilkinson company stamp, on the back of the original point paper, the initials designed by V.F, cut by HK are clear to see. We no longer have a sample of the colourways of fabric woven, however we know the fabric had 60 warp ends and 32 weft picks per inch and was woven on an acetate warp with a condenser cotton weft.
Today the design could be reproduced from the original point paper details providing the math and the weavers loom settings were compatible. Sadly, using CAD the image of the design could be cut and pasted for any fabric construction and proofed on the CAD screen in a fraction of the time taken by skilled technicians and artists in the 1940’s!
