Modern Threads: Art of Living, 1950–1970

For London Design Festival 2025, 8 Holland Street and TIBOR, present a distinctive collection of Twentieth-century European and British design, weaving the bold innovation of postwar modernism with the refined warmth of artisanal craftsmanship. Spanning furniture, textile, ceramics, and art, the exhibition presents work by a generation of designers and artists, including Tibor Reich, Guillerme Et Chambron, Richard Smith and Robyn Denny, who transformed everyday environments and their artist output into expressions of cultural optimism and creative freedom. At the centre is the work of French duo Guillerme et Chambron, whose sculptural oak furniture - both robust and refined - embodies the tactile appeal and democratic ideals of postwar design. Their pieces are presented with the vibrant, woven and printed textiles of Tibor Reich, the pioneering Hungarian-British designer. A contributor to the 1951 Festival of Britain, Tibor’s work represents a bold new language for the modern interior. His enduring legacy is echoed by many of Tibor’s designs, reissued today with the same spirit of experimentation and joy. The exhibition features a striking group of Tigo Ware - decorative yet utilitarian pieces that typify the bold forms and expressive glazes of the country's postwar output, alongside ceramics from Vallauris, the French Riviera town that became a creative hotbed for avant-garde pottery in the 1950s. These design elements are framed by the visual language of British abstraction, with artworks by Robyn Denny, Paul Feiler, and Ian Tyson. Denny’s hard-edged geometries, Feiler’s luminous spatial explorations, and Tyson’s typographic minimalism echo the same principles of structure, rhythm, and material clarity found in the collection on display. Together, these works articulate a unified vision of modern living—where art, design, and craft intersect to create a complete environment. The exhibition runs at 8 Holland Street Flagship, St James’s Park, during London Design Festival 13-21 September, and continues until 15 November.