Lucienne Day: Living Design, is an exhibition that celebrating the life and
work of one of most influential designers of the post-war generation, born on 5th January 1917.

This was the first major exhibition in a year-long nationwide programme of exhibitions, events, awards and collaborations to celebrate the centenary of the pioneering designer's birth. The exhibition tells the story of Lucienne Day’s design career, unfolding in a sequence of photographs drawn from the archives of the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation. It begins in 1940 with her Diploma Show as a textile student at the Royal College of Art, and the work leading up to her career breakthrough at the Festival of Britain in 1951 with the pioneering ‘Contemporary’ design Calyx. It continues with her prolific output of patterns for furnishing and dress fabrics, table linen, carpets, wallpapers and ceramics for numerous companies in Britain and abroad during the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. The exhibition concludes with her ‘second career’ in the last two decades of the century as a designer of handstitched fine art wall-hangings in the new medium she invented and termed ‘silk mosaics’.

This photographic history is complemented by a vibrant display of original silk mosaics and an impressive array of current or recent productions of her designs for curtains, dress fabrics and tea towels, demonstrating the continuing vitality of her design legacy. In a lifetime of dedicated design practice, Lucienne Day created a body of work which is steadily coming back into commercial production to excite and inspire a new generation.

Lucienne Day: Living Design has been curated by Arts University Bournemouth Deputy Vice-Chancellor and design historian Professor Emma Hunt in collaboration with Lucienne’s daughter Paula Day, chair of the Robin and Lucienne Day Foundation.