Born in Crosby, Lancashire, in 1936, Wood’s extraordinary talent for drawing was spotted by her teachers when she was aged just 10. After studying at Southport School of Art and Manchester College of Art, where she was steered away from the painting department due to her gender, graduating instead with a First Class Honours in Textile Design, Wood progressed to the Royal College of Art in London in 1957, and was part of a new generation of creatives, including the fashion designer Dame Zandra Rhodes, and artists Derek Boshier, Pauline Boty, Patrick Caulfield and David Hockney. Wood’s abstract practice is rooted in her classical art education, based on observational life drawing and the study of painting techniques.
After receiving a Fulbright Scholarship to Parsons School of Art in New York, Wood began to develop her abstract practice, influenced by the American Abstract Expressionists whom she had first seen in print form in the book ‘Art Since 1945’ (1958), edited by Milton S. Fox. Her sophisticated utilisation of pattern and deeply intuitive understanding of colour theory resulted in her quickly being recognised as an outstanding talent in the early 1960s, and she began to design book covers and advertisements for the New York Times. When she returned to the UK in 1964, she was asked to create fabrics for major design houses including Biba, Liberty and Heal’s, as well as the German firm, Rasch Textile; all the while, continuing to further her painting practice – one side of her work influencing the other, and vice versa.
Through her art, Wood has an impact similar to that of her peers with the glorious visual language of her generation. Fashion and design are an integral part of the building of individual identity and Wood’s contribution to popular culture in the 1960s and 1970s, and our lasting image of those decades is now receiving a critical attention.
Images (left to right): 1) 1961-63 Tom Wesselmann’s Bleeker Street studio was adjacent to mine and we became friends. Before I returned to England, Tom and his wife Claire gave me an album of our times together. This photo taken on their wedding day is from the album. I am standing across from Tom.
2) 1960 At the RCA prior to her departure to New York on her Fulbright Scholarship.
3) 1960 At the RCA prior to her departure to New York on her Fulbright Scholarship.
4) 1962 MacDougal Street coffee shop in Greenwich Village: Ted, my husband to be, and I met buying cigarettes at the cigarette machine. Everyone smoked.* A photographer secretly photographed us after we sat down to chat. I spotted the photographer taking our pictures. Several days later I encountered him on the street. I asked for copies and he printed them for me. I cannot recall or find his name.
*While in NY I was a commercial actor in a Winston cigarette ad and I have a copy of the ad.
5) 1967 Blenheim Crescent courtyard, Oswald Jones photo. Left to right standing: Ossie (he set a timer on his camera), me, beside me a friend of Jane’s, Jane Percival, and Michael Hastings. Frances and Michael Horovitz are seated. We all lived in Notting Hill Gate and were members of a group of writers and artists organized by Father Brocard Sewell who published the Aylesford Review.
6) 1964 Photo by Donald McCullin. Donald was working for the Sunday Times photographing the Rauschenberg Exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery. I was a visitor and Donald asked me and several other visitors to pose for this photo. Donald and I had never met before and other than sending me copies of photos I posed in, I don’t think we met again afterwards. Fur was out of favour in haute couture and therefore cheap along Portobello Road; consequently, it was in favour among artists.
7) 1964-78 Blenheim Crescent studio textile design, with notes.
8) 1961-63 Bleeker Street self portraits.
9) 1961-63 My Bleeker Street business card.
