Ethel Mairet

Ethel Mairet
Born Ethel Mary Partridge
17 February 1872
Barnstaple, Devon, England
Died 18 November 1952(1952-11-18) (aged 80)
Ditchling, East Sussex, England
Nationality British
Other names Ethel Coomaraswamy
Known for Hand loom weaving designer
Religion Roman Catholic

Ethel Mary Mairet RDI or Ethel Mary Coomaraswamy (17 February 1872 – 18 November 1952) was a British craft hand loom weaver who is regarded as someone who influenced the development of the craft during the first half of the twentieth century.

Life

Ethel Mary Partridge was born in Barnstaple, Devon, in 1872. Her parents were David (a pharmacist) and Mary Ann (born Hunt) Partridge. She was educated locally and in 1899 she qualified to teach piano[1] at the Royal Academy of Music. She then took up work as a governess until she met the rich geologist and later art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy.[2]

Her life is seen as a series of contradictions.[3]

Coomaraswamy

The Norman Chapel House main entrance in Broad Campden in 1895. This (partly 12th century) house was renovated by C. R. Ashbee for Ananda Coomaraswamy from 1905 to 1907[4]

She married Ananda Coomaraswamy on 19 June 1902 and her Anglo-Ceylonese husband began conducting a mineral survey in Ceylon. When she returned to England in 1907 Ethel and her husband's investigations into Ceylon crafts was published.[2] Her husband met Alice Richardson when she visited to meet her friend Philip Mairet in 1907.[5]

Until 1910 they lived in Broad Campden[2] where the arts and crafts architect Charles Robert Ashbee had established a community of artists and craftspeople. This Guild and School of Handicraft included Ethel's brother Fred Partridge[6] who was a craft jeweller and now the brightly dressed Ethel. During the time they were based at Ashbee's Norman chapel near Chipping Campden she and her husband visited India where they added to the textile collection they had begun whilst in Ceylon. Ethel complemented the collection of textiles by also learning how to weave by hand.[2] Her husband was openly having an affair with Alice Richardson and because he wanted a child he suggested that he should take two wives. Ethel found this unforgivable.[5]

Her husband committed himself to Alice Richardson and they were then married. Alice was to visit India with her ex-husband and returned as the musician Ratan Devi. Ethel went away alone and built a house near Barnstaple complete with studios for textile dyeing and weaving.[1]

In 1913 she remarried Philip Mairet who was fifteen years younger than she was. Her second husband had been her first husband's secretary and he had also worked with Ashbee. Together they established a joint home and studio near Stratford upon Avon. She was visited in 1914 by Mahatma Gandhi who knew of her work in Ceylon and he was interested in using simple textile techniques in India.[1]

Ditchling

Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft

In 1916 she visited Eric Gill and The Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic in Ditchling. Mairet was so impressed that she set about moving to the same community.[2] In 1918 she published A Book on Vegetable Dyes. During the 1930s and 1940s she trained people in weaving and dyeing at her Gospels studio at Ditchling. Mairet's seminal training at her workshop is said to have influenced all of the aspiring hand weavers of that generation.[7] The Swiss weaver Marianne Straub came to work with her and to learn more about hand loom weaving[8] and Mairet taught Straub about hand dyeing and spinning. Straub introduced a variety of double cloth weaves and developed a friendship with Mairet.[9] Mairet learnt from Straub and this underwrote her belief that hand loom weaving could be used by industry. Straub and Mairet went on three European holidays during the mid 1930s and Straub would frequently return to Mairet and Gospels.[9] A surviving journal written by Mairet from a European journey with her husband in 1927 illustrates how her observations were dominated not by whom she met but what they were wearing.[10]

In 1939 she had published Handweaving Today, Traditions and Change and she was the first woman to be made a Royal Designer for Industry.[1] Mairet died in Ditchling Common in 1952 and she was buried in Brighton.[1]

Legacy

Mairet influenced a generation of weavers. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography quotes the Japanese potter Shoji Hamada who called Mairet "the mother of English hand-weaving".[2] Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft exhibits artefacts related to Mairet and other artists who worked locally.[11]

She remained active throughout her life, and continued mentoring pupils and sending examples of her oeuvre to schools across the country. She taught at the Brighton College of Art from 1939 until 1947. A member of both the Red Rose Guild of Craftsmen and the Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers, in 1937 she became the first woman awarded the Royal Society of Arts title of Royal Designer for Industry (RDI).[12]

She is the subject of a published biography.[13]

The Ethel Mairet archive is housed at the Crafts Study Centre. It includes documents and memorabilia from 1872–1952. Personal documents, travel journals 1910–1938. business and personal letters, books of account and photographs are included[14] and are still (2015) a subject of academic study.[10]

Her remains were interred at St Nicholas' churchyard, Brighton, East Sussex, England.[15]

Published works

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Ethel Mairet, Brighton University, Retrieved 18 October 2015
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Coatts, Margot (October 2007) [2004]. "Mairet, Ethel Mary (1872–1952)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 18 October 2015. (subscription required)
  3. ↑ Robertsona, Kirsty (1 May 2015) [2005]. "Resistance and Submission, Warp and Weft: Unraveling the Life of Ethel Mairet" (PDF). Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture 3 (3): 292–317. doi:10.2752/147597505778052486. Retrieved 20 October 2015.(subscription required)
  4. ↑ Norman Chapel House, British Listed Buildings, Retrieved 21 October 2015
  5. 1 2 Cages Entanglment. Edward Crooks, 1985, Pages=66–67, York University, Retrieved 20 October 2015
  6. ↑ C R Ashbee, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, Retrieved 19 October 2015
  7. ↑ Craft Study Centre, University Museum of Modern Crafts, Retrieved 18 October 2015
  8. ↑ Faculty portraits. "Dr Marianne Straub". brighton.ac.uk. University of Brighton. Retrieved 19 October 2015.
  9. 1 2 Coatts, Margot (1997). Pioneers of Modern Craft. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp. 84–94. ISBN 0-7190-5058-8.
  10. 1 2 Ethel Mairet (2015) "Yugoslavian Journal, May 4–30, 1927", The Journal of Modern Craft, 8:1, 77–85
  11. ↑ About Us, Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, Retrieved 19 October 2015
  12. ↑ "Ethel Mairet". University of Brighton Faculty of Arts. Retrieved 20 October 2015.
  13. ↑ Coatts, Margot (August 31, 1983). A Weaver's Life: Ethel Mairet, 1872–1952 (Paperback). London Bath: Crafts Council in association with the Crafts Study Centre. ISBN 0903798700. ISBN 978-0903798709.
  14. ↑ "The Ethel Mairet Crafts Study Centre. Reference Number(s) GB 2941 2003.21/2003.23". Archives Hub. Retrieved 20 October 2015.
  15. ↑ julia&keld (19 March 2012). "Ethel Partridge Mairet". Find a Grave. Retrieved 20 October 2015.
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