In July 2026, Royal Holloway loaned one of their artworks to Compton Verney Art Gallery in Warwickshire.
From July 2026 to January 2027, Compton Verney is putting on an exhibition about the designer Enid Marx, inspired by their holding of Marx and her partner Margaret Lambert’s collection of ‘Popular Art’. Marx is perhaps most well known as the designer of the fabric on London’s Underground trains, and as a children’s illustrator. This exhibition aims to investigate Marx’s work as a fabric artist, contrasting her innovations in arts and crafts techniques such as block printing, alongside the effects of British Imperialism on modern art that existed during the early decades of the 1900s. It is also the first exhibition to publicly acknowledge Marx’s life with her partner Lambert.
Photo credit: Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park
For this exhibition, Compton Verney requested to borrow one of Royal Holloway’s artworks – a tempera and watercolour painted copy of a wall fragment from the Ajanta Caves in India, by artist Christiana Herringham c.1909-1911. This work, depicting a scene from the Buddhist ‘Hamsa Jataka’ story, shows a flock of geese fleeing as a king tries to capture their leader, an awakened being in the form of a golden goose.
Image: India: Ajanta - Fragment from the Hamsa Jataka, Lady Christiana Jane Herringham [P0913]
This work might seem a strange choice to accompany an exhibition on a British fabric designer. However, it displays how artistic interventions in India affected Marx’s block printing practices. In the 1920s Marx was apprenticed to the block printer Dorothy Larcher. Larcher had collaborated with Herringham in India, and both worked to champion artistic practices beyond Western Imperialism, and to highlight art from India and abroad.
This painting, which entered Royal Holloway’s art collection in the 1985 merger with Bedford College, was transported to Compton Verney accompanied by a courier from the cultural services team. The courier oversaw installation of the artwork alongside the various other books, clothing, furniture, prints and other artefacts brought together for the Marx exhibition.
It’s always exciting to see Royal Holloway’s artworks take on a new life when featured in different exhibitions and displays, both on campus and further afield. This was a wonderful opportunity to be a part of such a wide and varied exhibition on an important figure in British design.
The Pattern of Life: Enix Marx and Modern British Design is at Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park from Saturday 18th July 2026 – Sunday 3rd January 2027.
