In the early 1950s, the architect Serge Chermayeff designed textiles for L. Anton Maix Fabrics, a New York–based company that played an important role in the development of modern textiles suitable for the interiors of postwar-era architecture. Navajo, one of Chermayeff’s earliest textile designs, comes from Maix Fabric’s first collection of printed textiles, the America Designs series, which sold for $9 per yard.¹ This design features a diamond-shaped pattern loosely inspired by Indigenous American handwoven textiles (fig. 13.1). Chermayeff was most likely drawing on the graphic “eye dazzler” rugs developed by the Navajo (Diné) in the late nineteenth century for the commercial trade. Chermayeff’s design was available in multiple variations. It could be printed with two or three colors and in two different scales. The Museum’s example features the larger-scale pattern. In 1951 Navajo was selected for the Museum of Modern Art’s Good Design exhibition. Chermayeff designed several other patterns for Maix Fabrics as well, including Cross Hatch, Japanese Paper, Peruvian, and Inside, Outside.²

The Russian-born Chermayeff immigrated to England when he was roughly nine years old. In England, Chermayeff worked briefly as an interpreter and journalist. He also ran his own architecture practice from 1930 to 1932 before partnering with Erich Mendelsohn, with whom he worked from 1933 to 1936. In 1940 he immigrated to the United States, where he focused more on the design of objects and teaching architecture rather than actual building. He held teaching positions at Brooklyn College, the Chicago Institute of Design, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yale University. He was the recipient of many awards and honors, including a Gold Medal from the Royal Canadian Institute of Architects (1974), the Architectural Education Award from the Association of Schools of Architecture and the American Institute of Architects (1980), and the Misha Black Award from the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers, London (1980).³ —Sarah Marie Horne