Ray Funk
Two years after her death, Trinidad’s acclaimed artist and textile designer Althea McNish (1924-2020) is being celebrated in a major exhibition, Colour is Mine, that opened on April 2 at the William Morris Gallery in London and will run until September 11.
The exhibition features hundreds of items, including dozens of her classic textile designs, as well as paintings, photos, magazine illustrations, murals and more. Many items from her personal archives are on public display for the first time.
[caption id="attachment_960573" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Portraits of Althea McNish on display in the Colour is Mine exhibition at the William Morris Gallery in London. - Photo courtesy Nicola Tree[/caption]
The exhibition is sponsored by Liberty Fabrics, which has recently made 41 of her classic fabric designs available for sale, and they are glorious in their joyful celebration of McNish’s use of flowers and nature.
The gallery recently also offered a five-day workshop in textile design for teenagers in connection with the exhibition, encouraging the next generation of textile designers.
This has already been a banner year of celebration of McNish’s artistry. She had five works featured in the Life Between Islands exhibition of Caribbean art that recently closed at the Tate Britain, and had a classic interview with John LaRose republished in a new anthology, Liberation Begins in the Imagination: Writings on Caribbean-British Art.
For International Women’s Day in March, the London School of Fashion asked students and staff who had inspired them and one responded that it was Althea McNish: “Her designs are inspired by her love of nature (which I can totally identify with!). When I look at her prints, they bring me happiness because they are so bold, colourful, and joyful. They remind me of the brightest of summers days, when the sky is as blue as a cornflower and the sun is warm on my face!”
[caption id="attachment_960576" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Panels of textile designs on display at the Colour is Mine exhibition. - Photo courtesy Nicola Tree[/caption]
McNish was raised in Port of Spain and went to Bishop Anstey High School.
She reported in an interview, “I started painting and drawing very young.”
Her parents were very supportive, and she joined the Trinidad Art Society at an early age and soon found an equally supportive group of artists, including Carlisle Chang, Geoffrey and Boscoe Holder and MP Alladin, among others. Sybil Atteck was her mentor, who would pick her up and take her to painting sessions. She was participating in an Art Society exhibition by 16.
Indeed, it was through that exhibition that she got her first job, as a cartogra
