Althea McNish Colour is Mine, 2022

Location London

Client William Morris Gallery

Curator Rowan Bain, Rose Sinclair

Collaborators Nana Biamah-Ofosu - exhibition design, Studio Mark El-khatib - graphic design

A landmark retrospective celebrating one of Britain’s most pioneering textile designers — and the first designer of Caribbean heritage to gain international acclaim.

Althea McNish: Colour is Mine offers an in-depth exploration of the life and legacy of Althea McNish (1924–2020), a visionary whose work transcended conventional boundaries of textile design. Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, McNish relocated to the UK in 1950, undertaking postgraduate studies in textiles at the Royal College of Art. She soon emerged as a leading figure in post-war design, achieving success as a Black female designer at a time when the field remained largely homogenous.

Upon graduating, McNish created bestselling furnishing and fashion textiles for iconic names including Liberty, Dior, Heal’s, and Hull Traders — for whom she designed her renowned Golden Harvest print in 1959. Her portfolio soon expanded to include large-scale interior design schemes, murals, and wallpapers, marking her as a spatial practitioner as much as a textile artist.

Her painterly approach drew on botanical motifs from both the Caribbean and the British countryside, reimagined through a radical and exuberant use of colour that defied the restrained aesthetics of mid-century British design. Her technical expertise enabled her to push the medium’s limits: “Whenever printers told me it couldn’t be done, I would show them how to do it,” she famously said. “Before long, the impossible became possible.”

This exhibition draws extensively on newly uncovered research and McNish’s personal archive to highlight her transformative influence on 20th-century design — and her continued relevance to contemporary practice. Curated by the William Morris Gallery in collaboration with Rose Sinclair, Lecturer in Design Education at Goldsmiths, University of London. Photos by Luca Bosco.