Marianne Straub

Who was Marianne Straub?

Marianne Straub OBE was one of the leading commercial designers of textiles in Britain in the period from the 1940s to 1960s. She said her overriding aim was: "to design things which people could afford. ... To remain a handweaver did not seem satisfactory in this age of mass-production".

Linda Parry, curator of modern textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum, described her in 1990 as one of two or three British artists who used their great ability to serve industry.

Although she became a leading name in industrial design – creating upholstery for everything from London Underground to BEA aircraft – she almost always developed her ideas on a handloom before applying her technical knowhow to their manufacture. She believed that if more designers tried out their ideas first, there would be fewer bad results.