Lena Pillico 1884-1947
Scarf Design I, c. 1920s-40s
gouache on paper
75 x 50.8 cm
2023-12
Polish-émigrée painter and textile designer Lena Pillico (née Salomea Lean Pillico Goldmann, later Pilichowska) painted landscapes, street scenes and portraiture, as well as decorative designs featuring both figurative and abstract...
Polish-émigrée painter and textile designer Lena Pillico (née Salomea Lean Pillico Goldmann, later Pilichowska) painted landscapes, street scenes and portraiture, as well as decorative designs featuring both figurative and abstract motifs. Her husband, the painter Leopold Pilichowski, was President of the Ben Uri Art Society (1926–32) and she became the first female artist to exhibit under Ben Uri’s auspices at her St John’s Wood studio in 1927. She exhibited extensively with the WIAC and was also one of the first women to exhibit with the Seven and Five Society (1923–27). Contemporary reviewers admired her modern, decorative designs and 'hot-coloured exuberant fantasies'.