Screen-printed cotton crepe, 1956
The Fry Gallery is pleased to have acquired this example of one of the furnishing fabrics that Keith Vaughan designed for Edinburgh Weavers between 1956 and 1958. Vaughan was one of several contemporary artists who were commissioned by Alastair Morton, the director of Edinburgh Weavers, to design fabrics for the company. Other ‘Fry’ artists to receive commissions were Kenneth Rowntree and Eric Ravilious. Morton approached Vaughan in 1955 or 1956, having seen his paintings at galleries in London. Vaughan based the design for Fishermen on his 1953 lithograph The Old Seaweed Hoist which, in turn, was developed from his oil painting Seaweed Hoist of 1951. The final fabric consists of horizontal bands with repeated images of a harbour scene with fishermen, lobsterpots, an upturned boat and an anchor.