Modern Print Monday: Dora Batty

Hurstwood by Dora Batty, London

Dora Batty (1887? or 1900-1966) was an influential teacher at London design schools from the 1930s through the '50s, head of the Textile Design Department at the Central School of Art.  She is best known for a series of posters she did for the London Underground.

London Transport Poster by Dora Batty

She used a variety of modern styles in her posters, ceramics and textiles. 

Those pictured here are what might be called folkloric modernism, stylized imagery drawn from traditional Eastern European abstractions of nature. Modern yet nostalgic, folkloric abstractions were pioneered by Vienna's Wiener Werkstatte at the beginning of the century and quite popular after World War II.

Starlings by Dora Batty

Because so little is written about Dora Batty we don't know if she was creating trends in the late 1940s or simply expanding upon popular ideas.

Framlingham by Dora Batty, 1951

Feedsack with folkloric imagery

Batty's imagery fits into the trend for folkloric prints 

called Pennsylvania Dutch in post-war America.

The imagery is still popular today, as in this Japanese print from 

Lecien in their My FolkLore series.

See Sally Ann Parker's search for facts about Dora Batty here:

http://dollies57.blogspot.com/2013/03/recently-i-entered-camac-design_29.html