Museum & Study Collection: Joyce Clissold, Textile Designer and Printmaker

Joyce Clissold was a student at the Central School between 1924 and 1927, and later taught at the school from 1936 to 1940. Whilst still a student, she worked at Footprints, a print workshop in Hammersmith founded by fellow Central student Elspeth Little, Gwen Pike and Celandine Kennington, before taking it over in 1929. Clissold's prints utilised everyday objects and animals, and she created dye books full of recipes to recreate specific dyes. When she died in 1982, part of her archive was donated to the Museum & Study Collection at Central Saint Martins, including garments, samples, swatches, blocks, dye ledgers and designs. Her work has inspired not only staff and students alike, but also the title for the Lethaby Gallery’s Real Dirty Blue exhibition, which was taken from one of her dye recipes.