No. 13 River VII - a loom woven wall hanging by Tadek Beutlich MBE (1922 - 2011)

Woven in camel hair, wool, jute and burnt wood

England, circa 1965

Provenance: Purchased by the previous owner from the Peterloo Gallery, 33A Brown Street, Manchester, 15 March 1973.

Polish by birth, Beutlich made Ditchling in Sussex his home. He was renowned as an innovative textile artist and teacher, designing and making flat-weave tapestries and wall hangings inspired by folk art and continental Modernism.

Beutlich trained from 1937 at the State Institute of Fine Arts in Poznań, studying painting, ceramics, weaving, stained glass and sculpture. His studies were interrupted by the Second World War, during which he was conscripted into the German army and later served with the Polish Corps of the British Eighth Army in Italy. After the war he settled in England, studying painting and drawing at the Sir John Cass Institute in London on a government grant before transferring to Camberwell School of Art and Crafts, where he graduated in Textiles in 1950. While a student he was introduced, through his teacher Barbara Sawyer, to the weaver Ethel Mairet's studio, Gospels, in Ditchling - a visit that proved decisive in his shift toward weaving. He went on to teach at Camberwell for over twenty years, and took over Gospels himself after Mairet's death in 1967, moving there with his wife and son.

He exhibited internationally, including at the Lausanne tapestry biennales, and showed regularly at the Grabowski Gallery in London from 1963. His work was well received in the United States, France and elsewhere in Europe. Beutlich was appointed MBE in 1993.