Folly Cove Designers

Round Robin, 1954, an original Folly Cove Design by Eleanor Curtis

The Folly Cove Designers were established in Gloucester in 1938, where they worked together as a guild of designer-craftsmen from 1941 until 1969. The Cape Ann Museum has built a major archive of their work. It includes samples of their printed textiles and paper, items made from their fabrics and examples of the linoleum blocks they carved. An Acorn press used by one of the designers is also on display.

The Museum has presented two retrospective exhibitions of Folly Cove Designs, the first in 1982 followed by a larger show in 1996. The catalogue for the second show includes black and white images of the 329 known designs.

In the catalogue for the first show, curator Deborah Goodwin wrote about the group and its beginning:

Fish Story, 1957, an original Folly Cove Design by Virginia Lee (Burton) Demetrios

“The leader of the Designers was Virginia Demetrios (1909- 1968). An accomplished artist and a dynamic teacher, Virginia Demetrios was well known outside Folly Cove as the author and illustrator of several superb children’s books published under her maiden name, Virginia Lee Burton…

“The classes began at the request of one of her neighbors, Aino Yjrola Clarke. In exchange for some lessons in design, Mrs. Clarke offered violin lessons for the Demetrios’ two sons. So in the best tradition of a Yankee swap, the lessons began. In the months that followed, Aino Clarke enthusiastically recruited a party of neighbors who met each Thursday evening in the Demetrios studio.

“The students concentrated on producing decorations to use in their homes – fabrics for clothing, table linen, and upholstery. Meanwhile, Virginia Demetrios concentrated on developing a comprehensive system for teaching design to people who hadn’t any artistic training. She decided to break down a design into its simplest constituents. Once those were understood, mastery of complex concepts would follow more readily. Size, shape and tonality were isolated for consideration in homework exercises; the Thursday classes convened to compare their completed exercises and to work together with their instructor…”

The Designers achieved an unexpected degree of commercial success, selling their work initially from an old barn in Gloucester during the summer. By the fall of 1941, their designs were accepted for resale at America House (created by the Society of Arts and Crafts) in New York. As the handcraft revival continued, they were invited to participate in museum shows and the demand for their work increased.

The group disbanded in 1969, following the death of Virginia Demetrios in 1968.