Textile, Strange Birds

Strange Birds, created by Ann Smith, was part of the 1954 Signature Explorarta series. In the colorway presented here, stylized birds are drawn in heavy-handed black outlines against a mottled pink ground. The birds are partially filled in, as a child would color with crayons, in orange, blue, and yellow.
A Louise Dahl-Wolfe photograph published in Harper’s Bazaar (January 1954) features a model dressed in separates, fashioned from Strange Birds, pulling sketches out of an oversized portfolio covered in the same print. (1)
Sportswear designer Pembroke Squires of Masket Bros. created a dress and skirt from this design in multiple colorways; the pieces appear in the same issue of Harper’s Bazaar. (2)
(1) Gail Windisch, Sylvan Cole Jr., and Karen J. Herbaugh, Art for Every Home: Associated American Artists, 1934-2000 (Manhattan: Marianna Kistler Beach Museum, Kansas State University, 2016): 209.
(2) Karen J. Herbaugh, “Index of AAA Textile Designs,” in Art for Every Home: An Illustrated Index of Associated American Artists Prints, Ceramics, and Textile Designs (Manhattan: Marianna Kistler Beach Museum, Kansas State University, 2016), http://hdl.handle.net/2097/19686.

Textile, Strange Birds; Designed by Ann Smith; Produced by Associated American Artists (United States); cotton; H x W: 152.4 × 88.9 cm (60 × 35 in.); American Textile History Museum Collection; 2016-35-37