Marguerita Mergentime (1894–1941), an American textile designer best known for printed fabrics, made her mark in the 1930s with table linens in bold colors and patterns created to enliven American households. In New York City in the 1930s, Mergentime worked with some of the best-known designers of the day, including Donald Deskey, Russel Wright, and Frederick Kiesler. Her work was featured in The New Yorker, House & Garden, House Beautiful, and Vogue, as well as newspapers across America.
Mergentime was a member of the American Union of Decorative Artists and Craftsmen (AUDAC), which included numerous influential designers whose works define twentieth-century modernism in America. In 1932, Mergentime was commissioned by Donald Deskey to create designs for Radio City Music Hall. She produced her Lilies in the Air fabric that covers the walls in the Ladies’ Lounge and a carpet, both still visible on the Grand Lounge level.
Beginning in 1934, Mergentime focused her talent on producing table linens sold at Macy’s and Lord & Taylor among several others in New York, as well as department stores throughout the country. Mergentime’s innovative table linens brought asymmetry, politics, folk art, typography, and quizzes to casual dining. In 1939 Mergentime designed a souvenir tablecloth for the New York World’s Fair, and a hanging titled Americana for the Golden Gate International Exposition, San Francisco, that lists 360 words, phrases, and names taken from both historical references and the vernacular speech and popular culture of the day.
Marguerita Mergentime’s work resides in museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art; the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; the Brooklyn Museum; the Museum at FIT; and the Allentown Art Museum.
Virginia Bayer never got to meet her grandmother. She had heard stories about her, but it was only after her own mother passed away that she discovered Marguerita’s beautiful textiles – lovingly stored for three quarters of a century in the back of her mother’s closet. She immediately felt not only a connection to Marguerita but also a great admiration for this treasure trove of history, beauty and craftsmanship. She needed to know more, and so embarked on a journey to research all she could about this remarkable woman. And with that, a few years later the highly acclaimed book, Marguerita Mergentime: American Textiles, Modern Ideas was born.
Once the book was published, the opportunities revealed themselves and Virginia began the quest of reintroducing her grandmother’s designs to today’s market and preserving her legacy. In today’s current climate, we find ourselves in the same place as when Marguerita first designed, searching for and needing to strengthen our families, homes and friendships. What better way than around the table. Or over a cup of tea. Or in a gift that can lift the spirits.
