Althea McNish

Althea McNish is a British textile designer of Trinidadian origin who has been called the first British designer of African descent to earn an international reputation. Born in Trinidad, McNish moved to Britain in the 1950s. She was associated with the Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) in the 1960s, participating in CAM's exhibitions and seminars and helping to promote Caribbean arts to a British public. Her work is represented in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Whitworth Museum and the Cooper-Hewitt (Smithsonian Design Museum), among other places.

Background

Althea Marjorie McNish was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, around 1933. Her prosperous family was descended from the Merikin settlers in Trinidad. She painted as a child, was a junior member of the Trinidad Arts Society and had her first exhibition at the age of 16. Her influences included local artists Sybil Atteck and Boscoe Holder as well as European modernists such as Van Gogh.

In the early 1950s McNish moved with her mother to London, England, to join her father there. She already had a place to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in Bedford Square but instead took courses at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts, the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal College of Art. In her final year at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts, she became interested in textiles with the encouragement of Eduardo Paolozzi, and chose printed textiles as her subject of study on progressing to the Royal College of Art, where her talent was recognised by Hugh Casson. On graduating, she immediately won a commission from Arthur Stewart-Liberty, head of the Liberty department store, sending her the same day to Zika Ascher, who commissioned her to design a collection for Dior. Successfully designing for such prestigious clients, McNish was the first Caribbean woman to achieve prominence in this field.

She took part in the art exhibitions of the Caribbean Artists Movement held in 1967, May 1968 and January 1971, exhibiting textiles as well as "plastic panels in laminate". For the Caribbean edition of the BBC TV magazine programme Full House, produced by John La Rose and transmitted on 3 February 1973, she brought together the work of CAM visual artists as a studio setting for CAM writers, musicians and film-makers.

More recently, her work — represented by three printed textiles from early in her career: Golden Harvest, Pomegranate and Fresco — was featured in the exhibition RCA Black: Past, Present & Future (31 August–6 September 2011), organised by the Royal College of Art in collaboration with the African and African-Caribbean Design Diaspora (AACDD) to celebrate art and design by African and African-Caribbean graduates.

In 1969 she married John Weiss, architect, jeweller and historian, and has worked in partnership with him since 1971.

Notable designs

Most of McNish's designs are based on nature though some use abstract themes, occasionally geometric. One of her first designs to go into production, Golden Harvest in 1959, was a screen print on cotton satin manufactured by Hull Traders (for whom she created eight patterns), the design being based on an Essex wheatfield but using tropical colours. A number of her early designs including Tropic, a dress fabric printed on silk and produced by Zika Ascher in 1959, and Gilia, a cotton furnishing fabric featuring tropical foliage in green and gold, produced by Hull Traders in 1961, are in the textile collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Also in 1959, for a commission by the Design Research Unit for the new SS Oriana, which was launched in November 1959 and was the last of the Orient Steam Navigation Company's ocean liners, she painted murals for two restaurants, Rayflower and Pineapples and pomegranates, laminated into Warerite plastic panels.

In 1997, reviewing the exhibition Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in Britain, 1966–1996, in which McNish participated at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, with other CAM artists, The New York Times reported that she "produces abstract, geometric fabric designs inspired by African motifs".

Selected exhibitions

Solo

• 2003: Althea McNish: My World of Colour: the international work and inspirations of a Black British Trinidadian textile designer. Ohio University, Athens, USA.
• 1997: Althea McNish. Hockney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London.
• 1982: Althea McNish. People's Gallery, London.
• 1958: Althea McNish. Woodstock Gallery, London.

Group

• 2011: RCA Black. Royal College of Art, London.
• 2007: Trade and Empire: Remembering Slavery. Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, Manchester.
• 1998: Six into One: Artists from the Caribbean. Morley Gallery, London.
• 1997: Trinidad and Tobago Through the Eye of the Artist: From Cazabon to the New Millennium 1813-2000. Commonwealth Institute, London. Exhibition in celebration of the 35th anniversary of independence of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
• 1997: Transforming the Crown: African, Asian & Caribbean Artists in Britain, 1966-1996. Caribbean Cultural Center, Studio Museum in Harlem, and Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York.
• 1996: Caribbean Connection 2: Island Pulse. Islington Arts Factory, London.
• 1986: Make or Break. Henry Moore Gallery, London.
• 1982: Commonwealth Festival Exhibition. Brisbane, Australia.
• 1981: INDIGO '81 International Exhibition. Indigo, Lille, France.
• 1978: The Way We Live Now. Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
• 1978: Afro-Caribbean Art. Artists Market, London, organised by Drum Arts Centre.
• 1975: Caribbean Women Artists Exhibition. Olympia International Arts Centre, Kingston, Jamaica.
• 1971: Caribbean Artists in England. Commonwealth Institute, London.
• 1968: Caribbean Artists Movement. Digby Stuart College, House of Commons and London School of Economics London
• 1967: Caribbean Artists Movement. Theatre Royal, Stratford.
• 1961: Paintings by Trinidad and Tobago Artists. Commonwealth Institute, London.

Awards and accolades

• 1976: Chaconia Medal (Gold), Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, "for long and meritorious service to art and design"
• 1988: Scarlet Ibis Award, Trinidad and Tobago High Commission, London
• 2006: Honorary Doctor of Fine Art, University of Trinidad and Tobago
• 2008: Journalist Angela Cobbinah described her as "immediately influential, helping to establish new furnishing trends as well as inspire more adventurous fashion designers further down the line like Zandra Rhodes."
• 2012: Jubilee Gala Award for Achievement in the Arts at the UK High Commission of Trinidad and Tobago, celebrating the 50th anniversary of independence.

External links

• Official website
• "Althea Marjorie McNISH" at Debrett's People of Today.
• "Dr. Althea McNish in conversation with John Weiss". Stuart Hall Library, InIVA, 2015.