International Women’s Day
It’s International Women’s Day, so what better moment to shine a spotlight on three particularly talented and (we think) underrated makers!
Have you heard of these pioneering craftswomen?
Elizabeth Friedlander (1903-1984) worked across a range of media from brochures and patterns to calligraphy and publishing, but she is most known as the first woman to design a typeface.
We recognised this major achievement with an exhibition about the designer in 2018. Friedlander made this calligraphic anthology (pictured) for her friend – poet and printer Francis Meynell for her 60th birthday.
Corita Kent (1918–1986) was an artist, an educator and a Roman Catholic nun based in LA during the 1960s. In 2018 we celebrated her bold work with Corita Kent: Get With The Action, a showcase of her screen-printed banners and posters that reflected the artist’s concerns about poverty, racism, and war, and her messages of peace and social justice, such as this one ‘american sampler’ (1969).
Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie (1895 – 1985) was a pioneer in modern English studio pottery, known for her wood-ash glazes. Her work appeared in Women’s Work (2019) and is on display in our current exhibition, Shōji Hamada: A Japanese Potter in Ditchling. Pleydell-Bouverie described herself as a simple potter, “I like a pot to be a pot, a vessel with a hole in it, made for a purpose”.
Elizabeth Friedlander ©️University College Cork
Corita Kent image ©️ Corita Art Center
Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie ©️ Ben Boswell / Crafts Study Centre
What a great article. Great to see the spotlight shining on this artist. Happy International Women’s Day!