Enid Marx

Enid Marx: Design is a completely new collection of the printed and woven textile design patterns of Enid Marx (1902-1998), encompassing examples of her work for the London Underground, Royal Mail and Chatto & Windus Publishers; extraordinarily versatile and prolific, she became uniquely defined as a pattern maker, using textiles, paper and plastic in a way that was completely original, and while centered in the times that she was living and working, her designs enjoyed an amazing longevity of mass appeal. She was equally at home wood engraving or drawing for print making, end papers, book jackets, book illustrations and for stamp design.

Outside her own design activities her major interest lay with popular or folk art. Together with her companion, Margaret Lambert, she wrote articles and books on the subject and amassed a considerable collection of artifacts, which are now lodged at Compton Verney, Warwickshire.

When asked in old age if there was anything she wished she had done, she replied that she would liked to have instigated a Folk Art Museum; taking into account the wealth of work that she produced over her life that very much reflected and found fame in the commonplace, among the ordinary and the everyday, it would seem that she may have achieved that ambition, almost without trying.