Alec Walker and Crysede

Following a discussion about how my work is inspired by the Cornish gardens and countryside I was introduced to the work of Alec Walker . His designs were inspired by the countryside of Cornwall as mine are with drawings simplified and transferred to woodblocks for printing using discharge techniques .
( Extracts from Penlee Museum website).

"Crysede was set up by Alec Walker who was born in 1889 in Mirfield, West Yorkshire. His father was a well known textile manufacturer and in 1912 Alec was given a rundown mill by his father, which he turned around to produce the highly acclaimed 'Vigil Silk'.

The following year saw him purchase 'Sambo's Row' in Newlyn to convert to a textiles works
Plant and machinery were brought down from Yorkshire and local labour was trained; 1920 saw the formation of 'Crysede'.

Vigil Silk from the Yorkshire works (which was now being run by his brother Gerald) was printed and made up in Newlyn. The silk was printed on long tables using hand carved wooden blocks. In 1921 Alec Walker became involved in 'Group X', a Vortists revival.



In 1923 he visited Paris and met Raoul Dufy, who encouraged him to create his own designs. These soon became very popular and that year the company had over 3,000 mail order customers from places as far apart as Paris, Australia and America. In 1925, Walker held a one man exhibition of his textiles at the Independent Gallery, London. In that same year he invited Tom Heron (father of the painter, Patrick Heron) to join Crysede as manager. "
The designs on the textiles are extremely colourful and varied and were available in a wide variety of colour-ways. The company printed on silk, silk georgette and to a limited degree on cotton and linen. The designs were applied using wood blocks, a method of printing which in the main had died out. A different block was used for each colour, sometimes as many as seven. The ink was applied and the printing process is known as discharge printing. The ink bleached out the ground colour. The patterns were often given evocative names such as 'Dancing Flowers', 'Flying Fishes', but Walker also used the names of local places, 'Ding Dong', 'St. Buryan', 'Zennor', 'Penberth' and 'Isles of Scilly, for example."