Jacqueline Groag

Textile Designer (1903-1986)

Born in Prague, Austria-Hungary on 6 April 1903, Groag studied under Josef Hoffman and Frank Cizek at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna.

Groag worked as a textile designer, producing designs for the Wiener Werkstatte (under the name Hilde Blumberger). In 1933, she exhibited at the Milan Triennale. She was a member of the Osterreichister Werkbund and her work was often included in their exhibitions. In 1937, she moved to Paris where she designed dress prints for couturiers, including Jeanne Lanvin and Elsa Schiaparelli and exhibited at the 1937 Paris Exposition des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. In 1939, she moved to London where she designed dress and furnishing fabrics. Her patterns were also used for a range of surfaces including wallpaper, carpets and laminates. Her clients included British Rail, Edinburgh Weavers, De la Rue and a number of textile manufacturers. Groag’s furnishing fabrics were used in the Britain Can Make It exhibition at the V&A Museum in 1946. During the 1950s Groag also designed silkscreen motifs for ceramic dinnerware produced by Johnson Matthey. Misha Black said of Groag, ‘Few designers can move easily from abstract design to the representational and produce good work in both disciplines’, (Jackson, 2007, p.103). Throughout her career, she worked for Liberty, John Lewis, Warner and designed wallpapers for Wallpaper Manufacturers (WPM) among others. In 1984, she was made an RDI by the RSA. She was also a Fellow of SIAD, (now CSD). She was married to the architect Jacques Groag.

Jacqueline Groag died on 13 January 1986.

Further reading:

• Geoffrey Rayner, Richard Chamberlain and Annamarie Stapleton, Jacqueline Groag: Textile and Pattern Design, 2005.
• The archive of Jacqueline and Jacques Groag is held at the V&A Archives of Art and Design.

Original image reference: GB-1837-DES-DCA-30-1-POR-G-50-2. Design Council Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives.