Art Deco Rug with Progressive Design
Marion V. Dorn (1896-1964) was originally trained as a painter and this led her to develop her skills as a textile designer. During her formative years she worked in Paris and New York, and it was at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris that she first encountered the Modernist rug designs of Ivan Da Silva Bruhns and Maurice Dufrene. By 1928 she began her association with the Wilton Royal Carpet Factory. Throughout the following decade her work was exhibited in many of the most important decorative art exhibitions and she received very important private and public commissions, earning her the nickname of ‘architect of floors’.
The rug shown here is a prime example of her quintessential Modernist style. The design is composed of two superimposed layers, the background being composed of an orthogonal intersection of shades of ivory, camel and brown in a Cubist-like arrangement characteristic of the period, the colour gradation being enhanced by means of a pointillist effect; onto this substrate is overlaid an abstract geometric form in orange, distinguished by a quasi-calligraphic quality. We see a similar rendition on a rug commissioned in 1932 for Mrs. Robert Solomon’s music room (see C. Boydell, ‘The Architect of Floors’, London 1996, plate 40, p. 47). The vigorous juxtaposition of curvilinear and rectilinear elements became Dorn’s signature style, which characterised many of her more important commissions, such as the rugs designed for the Claridges and Savoy hotels in London. This museum quality example illustrates once more the many affinities between progressive rug design and the visual arts in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century.