15 Facts About Althea McNish

Althea McNish was an artist from Trinidad who became the first Black British textile designer to earn an international reputation.

Althea McNish was associated with the Caribbean Artists Movement in the 1960s, participating in CAM's exhibitions and seminars and helping to promote Caribbean arts to a British public.

Althea McNish's work is represented in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Whitworth Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture and the Cooper-Hewitt, among other places.

Althea McNish was a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers.

Althea McNish was married to the jewellery designer John Weiss.

Althea Marjorie McNish was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, around 1933.

Althea McNish painted as a child, helped with her mother's dressmaking business by doing sketches, was a junior member of the Trinidad Arts Society and had her first exhibition at the age of 16.

Althea McNish's influences included local artists Sybil Atteck, Amy Leong Pang and Boscoe Holder, and European modernists such as Vincent van Gogh.

In 1951 Althea McNish moved with her mother to London, England, to join her father there.

Althea McNish already had a place to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in Bedford Square but instead took courses at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts, the Central School of Arts and Crafts and the Royal College of Art.

In 1966, Althea McNish designed fabrics for the official wardrobe of Elizabeth II's during the Queen's visit to Trinidad.

Althea McNish took part in the art exhibitions of the Caribbean Artists Movement held in 1967, May 1968 and January 1971, exhibiting textiles as well as "plastic panels in laminate".

Althea McNish died in April 2020, at Spring Lane nursing home in Muswell Hill.

In 2018 Althea McNish was named in Architectural Digest as one of "Five Female Designers Who Changed History".

In 2022, a major retrospective of her work, entitled Althea McNish: Colour is Mine, was mounted at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, east London, sponsored by Liberty Fabrics.