Elenhank
Designers Inc., the husband and wife design duo of architect
Henry Kluck and artist Eleanor Kluck (whose nicknames combine
to form the company's name), was one of the small, entrepreneurial
companies that emerged as a leader in post-war American textile
design and production. In 1948, the Chicago-based team announced
their concern with "...meeting the fabric and design requirements
of contemporary architects and interior designer, and with
introducing a new vocabulary of fabric expressions." Terrain,
a design from 1970, demonstrates the realization of this mission.
Inspired by topographical maps, the design is screen-printed
in swirling shades of mushroom, black and white on a loosely-woven,
textural linen ground. The expanding and contracting pattern
takes advantage of the fluidity of the fabric, which would
have been ideal for undulating curtains.
Terrain is found in the Art
Institute of Chicago collection
(1985.722) and illustrated in Christa Meyer Thurman, Rooted
in Chicago: Fifty Years of Textile Design Traditions (1997),
Figure 8, p. 47.
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