By Editor Design.nl / 06-06-2012

Powerful designs with chequers, flowers, stripes, jobs and waves. Tastefully woven fabrics, used as a cover in a rattan chair or as a coating on a sleek bank. 'Fair' fabrics made of cotton and wool. The connoisseur can guess.

These are fabrics by De Ploeg. Unique textiles that could be purchased from the 1950s to 1980s in the 'better' interior shops in the Netherlands, such as Metz & Co., Bij den Dom, the Bijenkorf, but also in some branches of V & D. Creative mothers used it to manufacture blouses, dresses or trousers for their adolescent daughters. Or they would buy the fashionable, colorful fabrics that were manufactured by De Ploeg between 1953 and 1970. In this exhibition Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg looks back at these 'strong fabrics' by De Ploeg and also shows that the De Ploeg label still exists today.

Donation of Artex to the Textielmuseum
Following the closure of the factory in Bergeijk the Artex company made a large donation to the Textielmuseum that consisted of over 2,000 fabrics and patterns, hundreds of photos, drawings and documents that belonged to De Ploeg, as well as a smaller share of documents owned by 't Spectrum. The national Werkgroep Vormgevingsarchieven considers this collection to be a "collection of national importance".The donation is an important addition to the existing collection of De Ploeg interior fabrics in the Textielmuseum. For the recording and digitization of this donation the Textielmuseum received a grant from the Mondriaan Foundation, the Province of Noord-Brabant, the Municipality of Bergeijk, Friends of the Textielmuseum and the Spectrum company. In 2009 the museum started the 'De Ploeg project'; with the use of (temporary) project staff the large collection has been cataloged: cleaned, described and digitized. Now that everything is settled, the pieces are now presented in an exhibition, where the museum also calls attention to the new donation.

The exhibition: fabrics, photographs, documents, films and public relations materials
Referring to the donation and the location of the objects in the museum depot we chose to present the exhibition in a beautiful arrangement of steel racks, walls and barrels. This will also highlight the fabrics' bright color compositions.In a chronological / thematic line the visitor is offered a representative selection of more than 500 De Ploeg fabrics, even in the form of pattern books, clothes and curtains. Through historical photographs, films and documents (business records) the visitor may take a glance at the company’s history. A steel weaving-loom from around 1960 with test patterns and designs gives an impression of the design work at the De Ploeg design department. Pr materials such as advertising boards, posters, leaflets and printed matter, all performed in the modernist typographic style of De Ploeg and with photos of famous photographers complete the picture of the company. The exhibition ends with a presentation of the De Ploeg today, presented by Artex BV.

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