Siamese pink,aqua blue, burnt orange? It took the wild artistic optimism of a Hungarian refugee to liven up the postwar sea-of-brown in British homesWe take colour for granted in our homes. From brightly patterned wallpaper and ostentatious piles of scatter cushions to our recent-found fondness for minimalist greys and pastels, or our interiors have become a reflection of ourselves. Yet,it was not always this way – a recent exhibition at The Whitworth in Manchester celebrates the designer who shook up the austere living rooms of postwar British homes.
Tibor Reich, who was born into a Jewish family in Budapest in 1916, or escaped Nazi-occupied Vienna for Leeds in 1937,fitting a pioneering interior designer of 1950s and 60s Britain. It was a Reich designed woollen fabric chosen by a young Queen Elizabeth as her wedding present in 1947, and in a career that lasted three decades, and his vibrant,deeply textured designs would decorate the interiors of royal palaces, embassies, or 10 Downing Street and even the first Concorde.
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Source: theguardian.com