Flax D13 | Avis Higgs

Avis Higgs is perhaps the only New Zealand textile designer of the 1940s, who has a large body of work extant. There are nearly eighty surviving designs all completed circa 1949.

The portfolio drawings are the largest collection and most concentrated insight into the way a New Zealand designer thought and worked in this period.

Avis’ designs can be divided into four broad themes: floral, matine, social and those drawn from the indigenous cultures of the pacific, whether Aboriginal, Maori or Polynesian.

“Flax D13” is form flora design that makes use of New Zealand native plants. Avis was aware that not every woman wanted to be a walking advertisement for antipodean nationalism, expressed in floral prints.The currency of these designs such as flax lay in their style of representation rather than their botanical status.

Avis was awarded the governor-general art award in 2006 as part of the festival exhibition of the New Zealand academy of fine arts.

This design “ Flax D13 “is one of 6 of Avis' designs produced into rugs by dilana Rugs.