Comments on: Anna Maria Garthwaite, Silk Designer

By: Elizabeth Moisan

Elizabeth Moisan — Sat, 28 Jan 2017 04:18:45 +0000

Hello Adrienne—

Thank you so much for your kind words about my designs for Asmara. I worked very closely with the owner, Abid Ilahi, and together we produced beautiful carpets for many years. Since retirement, in 2011, I’ve been working as an illustrator and book designer.

If you read this, please let me know how you came to know about Anna Maria Garthwaite.

Hope the reading was fabulous.

By: Adrienne

Adrienne — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 14:12:55 +0000

I am very fortunate to be attending Zara Anishanslin’s reading and book signing tomorrow.
I have a mural of Spitalfields silk floral taffeta on the wall of my cloakroom and it looks stunning
https://www.surfaceview.co.uk/collection-item/4635/page
Thank you so much to Elizabeth Moisan for your fantastic contribution above and the link to your work at Asmara. The rugs you designed are fabulous Elizabeth.

By: Elizabeth Moisan

Elizabeth Moisan — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 23:08:50 +0000

Thank you, Gentle Author, for your wonderful blog. I read your offerings daily, and look forward to exploring Spitafields when I next visit London. Today’s blog is especially exciting because I am a great fan of Anna Maria Garthwaite’s work.

I am an artist and from 1970 – 2011 I worked as a carpet designer in both New York City and Boston, Massachusetts. From 1993 to 2011 I worked for Asmara, Inc., Boston, as the in-house designer. About 15 years ago the company owner, Abid Ilahi, brought home three books on English silk designs from the V&A, and one of them featured Anna Maria Garthwaite. I immediately recognized in her work a similar design sense and use of sinuous lines and fanciful flowers that I have. I felt as though I had a rapport with her.

The result of this joining of the minds is a carpet I designed for Asmara that was inspired by her work. In fact, the design I used is very similar to the one you used to illustrate this blog. My design is called “Branches” and has a similar skeleton on which I placed some of her flowers and leaves, and some of mine. The carpet is very popular and still sells very well. You can see it on the Asmara web site: http://www.asmarainc.com/products/branches-needlepoint-rug. The needlepoint carpet has 10 x 10 stitches to the inch, so it was possible to include a lot of detail. And because of the clever use of yarn mixed with different colored strands of wool, there are many more shades in the rug than the original 40+ colors I used when I painted it. (This was in pre-computer days, and I used very small brushes and Winsor & Newton Designers Gouache on illustration board.) By the way, despite not being credited in all the descriptive paragraphs on the Asmara web site, I designed all but eight of the carpets shown. I’m very happy to have had this interesting and productive career.

I’ve seen photos of Garthwaite’s original paintings as well as the silk, and even though she (generally) painted on a grid with translucent water colors, her notes to the weavers are not unlike my own.

Thanks once again for this blog about Garthwaite, and giving me a chance to share my work.

By: Meredith Davies

Meredith Davies — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 14:45:59 +0000

Loved this! Truly fascinating

By: pauline taylor

pauline taylor — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 23:49:12 +0000

Fabulous, I really enjoyed reading this especially as it has a skill at botanical illustration at its heart. I cannot help but wonder just how beautiful straightforward botanical illustrations by this very talented lady would have been, but it is a delight to see some of her designs for silk fabrics shown here, that waistcoat is absolutely incredible, what a pity that men’s clothes have now become so boring by comparison!!

By: Buzz McCarthy

Buzz McCarthy — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 14:02:16 +0000

Absolutely brilliant article….thank you so much…Love to add this (with your blessing and credit) in the ever increasing re-write of my book on my Cavaliers….Weavers from Normandy 1560-2003.

By: Paola Moore

Paola Moore — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 12:25:07 +0000

Such a shame that more isn’t known about the sisters but thank goodness the designs have survived. As someone whose ancestors were impoverished silk weavers around the Shoreditch High Street and St Leonards church area anything that provides me with a small thread of information to link me to them is much appreciated. Thank you.

By: Helen Breen

Helen Breen — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 09:57:33 +0000

Greetings from Boston,

GA, thanks for yet another colorful, historic shard in the kaleidoscope that is Spitalfields …

By: Hilary

Hilary — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 08:59:47 +0000

A fascinating article!

By: John Barrett

John Barrett — Tue, 17 Jan 2017 08:21:30 +0000

That was a smart move of the sisters moving to Spitalfields it certainly enhanced Anna’s career. She never married perhaps because she was so fascinated with this design world, it was sheer dedication with a single mind set. I am sure her sister (no name) played some part in her business was she her mentor providing a support network or just a companion. Her designs were generally big broad flowery set pieces as shown, a 18th C fashion statement, yet she was capable of lovely ‘dainty’ tracery work. Similar artistic designs on paper can be seen at Kew. If she was alive today she would be big time and a good exporter. Poet John PS Has they known graves perhaps flowers could be laid-just a though at this special time.