Tag: Mosaic

Designer Desire: George Mayer-Marton

Montage of George Mayer-Marton church mosaic works

 I was saddened to read about yet another priceless piece of art potentially soon to be destroyed. It’s a work by George Mayer-Marton (1897–1960) – his fresco and mosaic of the crucifixion which can be found behind the alter of the Holy Rosary Church in Fitton Hill, Oldham.

The church has been closed since 2017 and is set to be demolished… along with the mosaic inside. As you can see from our montage of before & after images above, the artwork has already been *probably* irreparably damaged; the two ends having been painted over in the 1980s, only the central figure of Christ remains.

Mayer-Marton’s mural in St Clare’s RC Church in Blackley, Manchester is the only other of his pieces which survives in situ in its original site. Another of his mosaics, Pentecost, was removed from a now demolished church in Netherton, Merseyside was luckily rescued and currently resides in Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.

A number of representatives from arts, architecture and heritage organisations have taken campaigning action – appealing to Historic England for its rescue; they include The Victoria and Albert Museum, Save Britain’s Heritage, The Imperial War Museum, The Victoria Gallery in Liverpool and The Vivian Gallery in Swansea.

A book to help fund the campaign has been published by Baquis Press. You can find copies here.

A mere 3 days ago, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) on Historic England’s recommendation gave the building – and Mayer-Marton’s mural – Grade II listed status.

Portrait of George Mayer-Marton

Additional image credits:
Craace | Manchester Evening News

Designer Desire: Biggs and Collings

Collage of Biggs and Collings mosaic works | H is for Home

When we recently spent an afternoon wandering around Spitalfields, we stopped to photograph an amazing public art wall mosaic on Brushfield Street.

After a little online research, we discovered that it was the work of husband & wife duo, Biggs and Collings.

Emma Biggs explains of the wall mosaic:

The design is based on Biggs & Collings paintings. The site is the former Fruit and Wool Exchange. The whites and light greys and browns relate to the colours of wool, and the strong hues pick up the colours of fruit. The rather ‘off’ tones come from looking at silks woven in the area in the 18th century. The weavers were largely Huguenots, refugees from religious repression.

Once we learned it was them, we looked into the other works that they’d done. They produce paintings and textiles, but its their mosaics that we find most stunning. The ones we’ve featured above are in private, public and commercial settings and located around the world.

Portrait of Biggs and Collingscredit

Additional image credits:

Emma Biggs | Mosaic Art Now | Sophie Munns

Designer Desire: Mary Blair

Mosaic of Mary Blair artworks | H is for Home

If you were a child of the 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond, the illustrations of Mary Blair will be really familiar to you. She was responsible for the concept artwork on many Walt Disney films. Bambi? Cinderella? Alice in Wonderland? Peter Pan? That was her!

She designed a breathtaking, multi-storey mural inside Disney’s Contemporary Resort which opened in 1971 (see the top right image in our collage and the film of its making at the bottom of this post). It’s 90′ tall and consists of 18 thousand hand-painted tiles!

The styling and colouring of the original it’s a small world installation is also her work. It began life as part of the 1964 New York World’s Fair’s UNICEF pavilion thereafter moving to Florida’s Walt Disney World. It has since been followed by later versions in Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland.

She was one of the main illustrators on the Little Golden Books series of children’s books (Another Disney project). Her output can be found in I Can Fly, Little Verses and Baby’s House.

Mary Blair also designed advertising and, on occasion, packaging for Meadow Gold milk, cheese and ice cream, Blue Bell children’s clothing, E-Z underwear, Hanes Underwear, Pall Mall cigarettes, Dutch Boy Paints and Baker’s instant chocolate flavor mix.

You can find numerous books illustrated by Blair, as well as books about her and her work on Amazon.

Check out some of our other past Designer Desire members here!

Mary Blair and Walt Disney

Image credits:

Flickr | Pinterest

Ceramic Mural from Animation Scoop on Vimeo.

Etsy List: I’m Shattered!

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'I'm Shattered!' Etsy List curated by H is for HomeI’m Shattered!
Curated by H is for Home

Mosaic is one craft that I’ve always wanted to try out but never got around to doing. It’s fairly easy to do – or so it seems to me – and the financial outlay on materials isn’t huge. Mosaic can be made using pieces of wood, plastic, glass, stone or the usual ceramic. It’s been around for thousands of years BC.

Remember I said that I thought it was easy to do? Well, I scoured Etsy for homewares featuring mosaic and there was a lot of it available. But so much of it wasn’t terribly good! It looks like it’s not that easy to master after all! Here are some of the items whose quality of craftsmanship I aspire to be able to produce one day!


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