Author’s note (June 2023): This paper was prepared on the invitaon of Dr Bill Cooke for the Journal of the Texle Instute, 89, 1998, pp. 3-15. In this version, I have made some small grammacal changes, added some subheadings, and improved the reference list. This essay was my first aempt to reconcile paern book evidence with the history of design. Philip A. Sykas, Manchester Metropolitan University “The public require spots”: modernism and the nineteenth century calico designer ABSTRACT: The work of the nineteenth century British calico designer was disparaged by contemporary manufacturers and artistic authorities in support of conventional hierarchies of taste. In reality, calico designers at the beginning of that century were at the vanguard of artistic developments, in active collaboration with their scientific colleagues investigating colour theory and dye technology. The cross fertilisation between art and science was a source of innovation in the rising textile industry, and led to the creation of striking abstract designs that might be deemed proto-modernist. The late twentieth century has seen the emergence of the new art histories, rejecting the study of individual artists of ‘genius,’ and eschewing the establishment of a canon of great works based upon quality. Instead, new art historians study the social context of art, and how art objects are used to uphold cultural ideologies (Fernie, 1995, pp. 18-20). To their immense credit, the new art histories have brought the contributions of women, of non-Western cultures, and of non-elite social classes into the mainstream. However, design history is still often seen as a separate discipline, 1 coinciding with art history mainly in issues surrounding the reception or 1 For a discussion of the movement toward creating a discipline for the history of design, see: Dilnot, C. ‘The state of design history’, In: (Margolin, V., ed., Design Discourse: history, theory, criticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), pp. 213-250.