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| Carpet by Marion Dorn
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MARION DORN
Great Britain
circa 1930
Knotted
Wool pile
345 x 315 cm - 11’4’’ x 10’4’’
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Signed Dorn
Beige-ground carpet with a decorative design of two stylised, interlaced letters and dots in brown.
Marion Dorn (1899–1964):
In England in the 1930s, a number of women succeeded in making a name for themselves in the field of interior decoration. Apart from Vanessa Bell we find Sylvie Maugham, Betty Joel and Marion Dorn. Marion Dorn is generally known as one of the most inventive textile designers of her generation. She was the first to take up the challenge, confronted with the brilliance of French production. Dorn and her husband McKnight Kauffer exhibited together for the first time in 1929. In 1934 she founded her own business in London, Marion Dorn Ltd. Her repertoire was essentially abstract, consisting of volutes, spirals, zigzags and geometric motifs, some of which are reminiscent of the art of Ivan Da Silva Bruhns. But Dorn did not abandon figurative motifs altogether: her designs often represent animals, plants or shells. Her colours are dark: bottle green, Etruscan red, grey, beige and brown. She designed fitted carpets and rugs. The Claridge, Savoy and Berkeley Hotels were among
her clients. She also worked for liners of the Cunard Line (Queen Mary, Orion). For Sylvie Maugham she created her famous all-white drawing room. She produced models for Edinburgh Weavers and for the Wilton Royal Carpet Factory. Upon the outbreak of the Second World War she returned to the USA, where she worked for the firm of Edwards Fields from 1951 to 1962. She died in Tangiers in 1964.
Bibliography:
Day (S.), Tapis Modernes et Art Déco, Edition Norma, 2002, pp. 157–163, 188
Mendes (V.), “Marion Dorn, Textile Designer”, Decorative Arts Society 1890–1940, Bulletin 2, 1978
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