A large album overflowing with a wide range of Muriel King’s design work. Business cards for her Ebury Street offices are affixed to the pastedowns, describing her specialities as “Book Illustrations, Designs for Furniture and textiles, Interior Designs and Planning, Mural Painting, Greetings Cards, and other artistic work.” There are designs for embroidery, murals, menus for London restaurants, the decorations for dining rooms, staterooms, and ballrooms on P&O cruise ships, including the original designs for work on the S.S. Himalaya, launched in 1948, and at that time the largest and most luxurious of P&O’s liner fleet. stateroom and decorative designs for the unfortunately doomed Cunard vessel Caronia, a very modern liner by late 1940’s standards. It was extremely luxurious, one of the earliest cruise ships to have an outdoor swimming pool and was intended originally to partner The Mauretania in its Transatlantic cruise duties. Muriel King had clear enthusiasm for the project, which shows in the particularly modern and well executed fold out design for staterooms, and a number of distinctive designs for the Children’s Dining Rooms, amongst others. There are a number of designs for sandblasted glass wall pieces, presumably of impressive dimensions, featuring attached flower vases, and at least one of the designs comes with an oil paint version on card to illustrate the colour possibilities.

Included are several photographs and sketches of a household mural being executed by Muriel, who features in one of the images, and a more distinctive example of 1950’s decoration can barely be imagined, if the 70’s were the era of brown and burnt orange, then the late 50’s early 60’s in London were dominated by pea greens, pastel blues, and terracotta tones in squares and diamonds. Many of the designs were originally tipped or taped into the volume, but the tape has deteriorated, and the vast majority of material is loosely laid in. Also present are a number of Christmas card and menu designs, a card apparently designed for Muriel’s sister Ashley, who appears to have been an optician. King also completed mural designs immediately post war for the Forces Centre in Salisbury, the cover design (both original art and finished product) for an issue of “Sales Appeal” magazine in 1950, designs for wrapping paper, theatrical designs, and a suite of full colour fabric designs in a variety of ebullient styles. As far as we can tell (and despite a physical resemblance) we cannot make a link between the Muriel King of Ebury Street in the late 40’s designing fabric patterns, cruise ship staterooms, and children’s books, and the similarly prolific but slightly more mainstream Muriel King who designed costumes for Hollywood, famously for Katherine Hepburn, and fashion collections in NYC during the same period. Regardless, a fascinating and dense collection from someone who was very clearly a creative powerhouse. This album documents the lost history of a successful artist and illustrator in London who achieved significant commissions and whose designs are quintessential of the era.

London, c. 1945-1957. Sketchbook, large quarto, bevelled beige cloth boards, backstrip missing, with the structure of the spine exposed but unaffected by the cosmetic absence. Rubbed to the extremities.