Collector Lloyd Cotsen’s love of children’s literature and textiles merge in this linoleum-block-printed sample designed by Virginia Lee Demetrios. A trained dancer, Demetrios often included movement in her drawings, seen here in the S-curving bands and couples dancing the “Finnish hop,” a pastime of immigrants working in the granite quarries near her home.
As an award-winning author and illustrator of popular books such as The Little House and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Demetrios is known by her maiden name of Burton.
In 1941, Demetrios founded the Folly Cove Designers, giving lessons with strict instruction on the elements of design. She encouraged her students to depict what they were interested in, what they knew best and what they saw around them in Cape Ann, Massachusetts. The group of designer-craftsmen completed their projects to high standards, rendering the drawings, carving the linoleum blocks and printing the fabric themselves.
Under Demetrios’ leadership, over 300 documented designs were used to create home goods, clothing, yardage and even wallpaper. Labels printed onto or attached to fabric and wearables denoted their origin. The Folly Cove Designers began selling to locals and tourists, but soon expanded to suppliers and retail stores from Atlanta to Boston, including the department store Lord & Taylor.
Eventually, commercial success became too demanding, and the collective disbanded in 1969, after Demetrios’ death. The Folly Cove Designers’ papers and remaining stock are now owned and displayed by the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
