Beryl DeanMBE was a British embroiderer. She was known for rejecting the traditional Victorian designs and for creating her own contemporary embroidery designs.
Life
Dean was born in Bromley in 1911. Her mother, Marion, was a natural artist and her father was a share dealer. She gained her skills at the Royal School of Needlework. She graduated in 1932 and went on to study dress design and leatherwork at Bromley School of Art. Her early promise was recognised in 1935 when the Royal College of Art gave her a Royal Exhibition. In 1946 she left the Eastbourne School of Art where she had been a lecturer for seven years to join King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne. Some were concerned that textile skills was diminishing and she helped the Needlework Development Scheme who were trying to re-energise needlework teaching in schools. She was rejecting the traditional Victorian designs used in religious embroidery and she wanted to create her own contemporary designs. In the 1950s she took on commissions from Guildford and Chelmsford Cathedrals, King's Lynn Minster, St Martin's Church, Dorking, and St Giles' in Northbrook, Illinois. In 1958 she published her book "Ecclesiastical Embroidery" and she was then lecturing on the subject in Britain and in America. In 1968 she established new interest in the subject when she helped curate an exhibition at St Paul's Cathedral.Groups were formed in Britain of people interested in contemporary ecclesiastical embroidery. In 1969 with funding that included the descendants of the Knights of the Garter, Dean set out on a five-year task to create five embroidered panels to hang in the Rutland chantry of St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The five panels represent the annunciation, the visitation, the adoration of the magi, the temptation of Christ in the wilderness and the miracle at Cana, although only one panel is normally of display to the public. Dean died on 27 March 2001. Her 1984 piece "Head of Christ" is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The embroidery is made by a difficult technique and it was inspired not by a commission but Dean's own imperative to give a good use to some remaining skeins of Japanese gold thread.
