Artist Info
Enid Marx
Enid Marx. Educated at Roedean and at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1921 to 1922 where she studied drawing, pottery and printed textile design. She proceeded to the RCA in 1925 where she studied wood engraving and painting. In spite of being one of the most outstanding students of her year she failed the final examination because the subject of her painting (a fairground scene) was deemed inappropriate for Fine Art. She worked with Barron & Larcher from 1925 to 1927.
She was extremely versatile; her wide range of interests and technical abilities include wood engraving and auto lithography for pattern papers, book jackets and illustrations, postage stamps, textile designs, wallpapers and ceramics, posters and moquette upholstery for London Transport. She was elected RDI in 1944. At the Central School she was taught by Butterworth, ‘an uninspired teacher but an excellent textile designer’, and by Bernard Adeney, who ‘said my work was like Blake’s, but I'd never heard of him.’
Enid Marx, RDI (1902–98) studied drawing, pottery and printed textile design at the Central School in the 1920s. Beginning her design career in a textile studio, she branched out into designing book covers in 1929, and in 1937 London Transport commissioned Enid to design the patterns for bus and tube seat covers. During World War Two she wrote and designed children's books. After the war Enid worked for Penguin books, designed stamps and wrote books on English popular art. In 1994 she became a Royal Designer for Industry. Enid's contribution to the history of design is celebrated in the Enid Marx galleries at Compton Verney, which feature her work alongside the collection of folk art she created with her partner, Margaret Lambert. Many examples of Enid's work are held in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Author: Ruth Sykes- 2016
