Tadek Beutlich: On and Off the Loom

The monumental textiles, striking prints and tiny figurative works on show cement Beutlich’s place as a visionary textile artist and printmaker who eschewed traditional methods and materials

Tadek Beutlich: On and Off the Loom, installation view, Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, 18 January – 22 June 2025. Photo: Phoebe Wingrove.

Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, East Sussex
18 January – 22 June 2025

by BETH WILLIAMSON

The Polish-born artist Tadek Beutlich (1922-2011) was an innovator, a visionary and a teacher in textile art and printmaking. In his tapestries, textile constructions and relief prints, he was entirely unconventional in his approach, directed only by an overarching desire for freedom in materials and methods.

Born in Lwówek (a small town 55 kilometres from Poznań) to a German father and a Polish mother, Beutlich grew up in a borderland. That border was geographical, due to the location of Lwówek, and psychological, due to the different nationalities of his parents, as well as the tension between Catholics and Protestants in Poland at that time. Beutlich began his artistic training at 15 when, in 1937, he took classes in painting, ceramics, weaving, stained glass and sculpture at Państwowy Instytut Sztuk Plastycznych (State Institute of Fine Arts) in Poznań (now the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts). At the outbreak of the second world war, his studies in Poland were curtailed and, after a short period in Weimar then Dresden, he was conscripted into the German army in 1942. Then, in 1946, Beutlich had the chance to study in the UK. He first studied painting at Sir John Cass School of Art in London then studied textiles at Camberwell School of Art from 1948 to 1950 before teaching there for 24 years.

Tadek Beutlich: On and Off the Loom, installation view, Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, 18 January – 22 June 2025. Photo: Phoebe Wingrove.

While he began making and teaching traditional flat tapestries made of wool and cotton on a vertical frame, he soon began to depart from this and instead exploded into an experimental and creative field that would sustain him for the rest of his life. Informed by the many exhibitions he saw and people he met, Beutlich adhered firmly to an early mantra passed to him in art school: “Do not think, just do.” It was thanks to his teacher at Camberwell, Barbara Sawyer (1919-82), that he visited the weaving studio at Gospels in Ditchling and met Ethel Mairet (1872-1952) and Peter Collingwood (1922-2008), two influential textile artists.

There were two important exhibitions in Beutlich’s artistic field in 1962. At the Victoria and Albert Museum, he saw Modern American Wall Hangings, which proved to be a turning point for him in terms of the boldness of his practice. Simultaneously, he began to innovate in other ways too. In this, his work resonated with that of other successful Polish artists showing that year at the first Lausanne International Tapestry Biennial, although he did not realise this at the time.

Tadek Beutlich: On and Off the Loom, installation view, Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, 18 January – 22 June 2025. Photo: Phoebe Wingrove.

Following the death of Mairet, Beutlich had the opportunity to buy Gospels and eventually moved there in 1967 with his family, living and working there until 1974. At about this time, his work garnered international attention and success with regular solo exhibitions from 1963 to 1974 at the Grabowski Gallery in London. Beutlich had also made prints from early on in his career, winning second prize in the Giles Bequest print competition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1960. From 1963 until 1974, he made prints for Editions Alecto, which published original graphics and multiple originals. Editions Alecto had a roster of artists that included Michael Rothenstein, Allen Jones, Eduardo Paolozzi, Patrick Proctor and others, so Beutlich was in fine company, even if his printing methods were somewhat unconventional. Rather than work with a printing press, he preferred to work with lino, plank wood and plywood, standing or stamping on the medium with his feet. Later, he invented a small box filled with stones to weigh it down and with the addition of a roller. His printing was as original and exploratory as his weaving. It was that freedom to experiment that appealed most to him. As he said: “I dislike any complicated involvement in mechanical means, equipment and great preparations etc. I like to work as directly as possible.” That directness led him to create striking prints engaging with nature, including birds, insects and plants. Pollination I (1973-74) and Twin Suns (c1964) are all particularly good examples of how his direct relief printing methods brough such subjects alive.

Tadek Beutlich: On and Off the Loom, installation view, Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, 18 January – 22 June 2025. Photo: Phoebe Wingrove.

The large monochrome rugs and wallhangings he made in Ditchling such as the huge-spanned Winged Insect (1973) may have reflected his wartime experiences. The imposing presence of such works is still felt today as their twisted sisal materials radiate tension and unease, even in the midst of the Sussex countryside. The inherent anxiety embedded in works such as Legend (c1973) and Archangel (1973) reflect a deep sense of foreboding that seems never to have left him. The star of the show for Ditchling is the monumental Dream Revealed (1968), an eight-foot-tall weaving in unspun jute, horsehair and mohair, not seen since the 1969 Lausanne Textile Biennale in Switzerland, and restored to its former glory for this exhibition.

We might say that Beutlich was the victim of his own success at Ditchling. By all accounts, the running of a large studio at Gospels with its attendant array of assistants to manage became too commercial, too noisy, for him. A natural introvert, he preferred to work alone but at Gospels he was distracted by the constant presence of other people. Furthermore, he found he was designing rather than making, something that he felt uncomfortable with and so he decided to leave Ditchling.

Moving to Spain in 1974, Beutlich rediscovered the freedoms in materials and methods that had always inspired him from the start of his career. The tapestries he made at this time were constructed from coloured wool found in local markets and esparto grass that grew around his home. Relishing the isolation of his newfound Spanish home, he worked without weaving equipment and rediscovered his creative flow. Making these “free-warp tapestries”, as he called them, Beutlich was able to create work of any shape he wished. In this major shift, he began to make small and miniature works, often brightly coloured and always experimental. This was partly down to lack of space and equipment but also through choice. When Collingwood asked him to participate in the International Miniature Tapestry Biennale in 1974, the largest work was just 35.5cm x 35.5cm.

Tadek Beutlich: On and Off the Loom, installation view, Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, 18 January – 22 June 2025. Photo: Phoebe Wingrove.

In 1980, Beutlich returned to the UK and lived in Folkestone where vibrant free-form works such as Plant Form (c1982) and Insect (c1981), both woven from esparto grass, sisal and wool, were soon to follow.

Despite all the striking experimental work in weaving and printmaking, Beutlich’s astonishing tiny figurative works of the 1990s were what stayed with me from this exhibition. Grotesques (1991) and Prisoners (1992), Onlookers (1997) and Queueing II (1997), the latter pair made from esparto grass, cotton wood and PVA glue. The sheer energy packed into these tiny tableaux is staggering. The anguish imbued in these simple hollowed out features is heartbreaking. Even towards the end of his life, perhaps Beutlich was still suffering from his wartime experiences, and still turning those experiences into something creative, evocative and essential to share.