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Cryséde Textile Design and Production Cryséde 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'. He first visited Newlyn in 1912 with Kathleen Earle and was encouraged to start sketching by Ernest Procter and Harold Harvey. In 1918 he married Kathleen Earle and bought Myrtle Cottage, Newlyn. 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 'Cryséde'. 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.  Violet Picking Trembath by Alec Walker In 1923 he visited Paris and met Raol 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 Cryséde as manager. Cryséde moved premises to St. Ives and in the following year became a limited company; Walker continued to work from his studio in Newlyn. In 1929, Walker suffered a nervous breakdown and he dismissed Tom Heron and many other key members of staff. Walker himself was then dismissed by the Board on health grounds and had no contact with Cryséde for three years. Walker returned to the company for a brief period in 1932 but soon retired from Cryséde and moved back to Yorkshire. He returned to Cornwall after the war and died in Falmouth in 1964. | |||
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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. | |||
