Enid Marx

Enid Crystal Dorothy Marx, FRSA (20 October 1902 – 18 May 1998) was an English painter and designer. Marx was the first female engraver to be designated as a Royal Designer for Industry.

Born in London to Robert Joseph Marx and Annie Marie Neuberger, Enid was the youngest of three children. Her artistic inclinations were fostered from an early age, especially by older sister Marguerite who lived in France for a period in her childhood. Enid found pleasure as a young girl in collecting samples of ribbon from textile shops.

Marx was educated at Roedean School, the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal College of Art, which she left in 1925, having failed her diploma. Many years later the College awarded her an honorary degree.

After leaving the Royal College she went to work for the textile designers Phyllis Barron and Dorothy Larcher at their studio in Hampstead, having been introduced to them by the potter Norah Braden. A year later she started her own workshop designing and making hand-printed textiles. Her work was sold through the Little Gallery, off Sloane Street, and later at Dunbar Hay gallery.

In 1929 she began designing book covers, starting with one for a volume on the engravings of Albrecht Dürer. Marx received further commissions from Chatto and Windus. Her later designs included the covers for Scott Moncrieff's translation of Proust.

In 1937 She was selected by the London Passenger Transport Board to design the moquette seat fabrics for use on the seats of London buses and tube trains. The new seat fabrics were part of a customer-experience centered redesign focusing on interior fabrics and surfaces. The redesign effort was spearheaded by Christian Barman and Frank Pick. At least four of Marx's designs were used throughout the interior redesign, although many more of her samples were likely to have been considered. During the process of creating the patterns, Marx expressed displeasure with the manufacturing firms and the liberties taken in design to conform to manufacturer requirements. Marx was supported in her assertions by Barman, but ultimately felt that time and effort could have been saved if the manufacturers would have come to her first when needing to modify designs. The pattern used for the seats and interior backdrops was a geometric design in green and red.

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