Howard Asher

Howard Ashwer was born in Huddersfield 14th of February 1946. He attended a pre-diploma year at Huddersfield School of Art in 1964, and from there went to the Central School of Art & Design 1965-1968.

In 1968, Howard was selected by the Principal of the Central School to apply for a Leverhulme Travelling Scholarship in Industrial Design. Out of 32 applicants, Howard was one of four chosen to receive the award of £600. The scholarship money was a huge sum at the time and allowed Howard to travel for eight months in Europe, visiting retail shops, museums, architectural sites and design schools. The trip was hugely influential on his practice and personal life: ‘It is only looking back that I can see how the lessons in independence learned in these eight months of travel were crucial survival skills in the years to follow.’

After the trip, Howard worked at the Deryck Healey studio in London, and also began visiting textile company offices in the West End with his portfolio to sell designs on a freelance basis. After some success, he decided to visit New York with his art school colleague, Tony Boyd. ‘Sales were very good for both of us, and we had no problem getting appointments. Being English opened doors in a city enamoured by the London music scene.’

Howard’s career began to blossom, and he decided to go freelance full-time. Around 1970, he met the design agent Bruno Pichler, who asked Howard and his colleague Judith Found to design some patterns for double-knit fabrics. The designs were done on millimetre graph paper, and Howard’s signature style of working on point paper developed from this: ‘I took to this design process straight away, and it launched my best-known design style.’ Orders for fashion prints continued alongside double-knit designs in the early 1970s, and he sold hundreds of designs ‘to a market that seemed insatiable.’

Howard slowly tried to break into the market for home furnishings. This was not easy because it required a new technical background, with different scales, repeat styles and colourings. Howard continued to design on graph paper, but now the designs were free to be larger and he could introduce more colours. Sales in New York continued to form an important part of Howard’s business, and the bedding market became a steady user of Howard’s patterns in the 1980s.

In the early 21st century, many textile firms began working digitally, and the demand for Howard’s handmade designs started to slow. He eventually stopped travelling to New York, and began exploring other creative projects instead. He painted acrylic canvases until the week before his death in 2021.