Three different colorways of the classic signed Tammis Keefe Christmas themed hankies. The design for these was featured on the cover of the 1952, Crafts Horizons shown in the picture. Keefe was a wildly successful Mid-century textile designer and colorist. Hankies are available in three different colorways, one with original foil tag. In excellent condition these look unused. They measure about 13 by 13 inches. Cotton with a hand rolled hem. Magazine is for display only and not included. Will be shipped folded.
Tammis Keefe. Photo from http://makingitfun.blogspot.com Another two things you should know about the Blackbird girls is that we collect lots of mid-century linens (the cuter the better), and that we also collect children's illustrated books. A designer and artist that really captures the fun of both of these things is Tammis Keefe. Margaret Thomas Keefe was born in December 1913 in California. Although she started out studying math in college, she soon realized her passion for art and transferred to the Chouinard Institute of Art. After graduation, Keefe worked at the Disney studios, and then as art director of the magazine Arts and Architecture from 1940 to 1942. After that, she was mentored by textile artist Dorothy Liebes, where she began to focus on being a print maker and colorist. From flickriver.com by xtinalamb Keefe's fun prints reflected America's optimistic outlook following World War II. Bright and cheerful, her prints were influenced by her travels, animals and nature, and celebrations. While working with Liebes, Keefe designed textiles for Goodall Industries, as well as Golding Decorative Fabrics, Cyrus Clarke and Jud Williams Inc. She also designed wallpaper prints for James Kemble Mills and Katzenbach & Warren.* nwfestival.com Keefe's fabric and wallpaper prints for the home soon led to other product design. She began designing hankies, dish towels, tablecloths, and even clothing. Her designs were collectible, even in her time, and she really revolutionized the idea of the designer as a brand for their products. Her designs for retailers like Lord & Taylor were manufactured by Kimball, and were signed "Tammis Keefe." She even marketed to other retailers as "Peg Thomas" as a way to be represented in multiple retail outlets at the same time. From KLB Vintage Wares on Etsy In a 1951 Christian Science Monitor article, Keefe was quoted as saying “Anything is possible in textile design, if it is done correctly. A designer merely starts with something, anything, and then develops it. To an imaginative person, practically anything suggests a starting point. From then on, it is merely stating what you have to say in design.”* Tammis Keefe died in 1960 at age 46 from cancer, but she left a legacy in her prints. In recent years, Michael Miller fabrics reissued some of her prints in quilting and craft cotton. Her patterns are still as endearing and enchanting today as they were 50 years ago. We currently have an Arabian patterned hankie for sale in our shop! Blackbird Antiques NC *Background and quotes from http://www.tammiskeefe.com/ and http://makingitfun.blogspot.com/2010/11/tribute-to-tammis-keefe.html. Thanks to them for the great info!
Vintage cotton linen tea towel in bright green, pink and white by mid-century designer Tammis Keefe. Two old-fashioned apothecary jars filled with sweets are surrounded by penny candies that seem to dance in the background. The subject matter, as with most designs by Keefe, is filled with whimsy and delight. Keefe worked as a textile designer in New York in the forties and fifties. She freelanced for various home decorative lines designing scarves, dish towels and even wallpaper. Her popularity grew as she became known for her whimsical, colorful designs. In 1948 a firm named J.H. Kimball commissioned Keefe to create a line of hankerchiefs for Lord & Taylor. Those hankerchiefs are highly sought after today by collectors. Tammis Keefe's work can be found at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper Hewitt and the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Condition: Very Good Vintage Condition Measurements: 16" x 28"
Born Margaret Thomas Keefe, and called Peg by her family (which is Gaelic for Thomas), Tammis Keefe is one of the great names of hankie and textile design collecting. She was born in 1913, and in t…
Born Margaret Thomas Keefe, and called Peg by her family (which is Gaelic for Thomas), Tammis Keefe is one of the great names of hankie and textile design collecting. She was born in 1913, and in t…
After months and months of research, Ebay searches and purchases, we yearn to learn more of this interesting artist's too short life. It's with great pleasure we bring to you the wonderful designs of Tammis Keefe. Born Margaret Thomas Keefe on December 27, 1913 in Los Angeles, her father, Thomas Keefe, had passed away the week before she was born. Her family called her Peg, a common nickname for Margaret. Tammis (gaelic for Thomas) grew up in Los Angeles where she lived with her mother, aunts and grandparents. Handkerchiefs, linen kitchen towels and scarves are what Tammis Keefe is known for today because of their availability. However, she designed for home furnishing fabrics (Goodall Industries and Golding Decorative Fabrics), wallpaper, all manner of kitchen linens in addition to towels including tablecloths, placemats with matching napkin sets and cocktail napkins (Fallani & Cohn, Falfax All Linen and Goodall). She also designed sportswear shirts for men and women (Marlboro Shirt Company), Christmas cards (Irene Dash Greeting Card Co.), playing cards (Random Thoughts Publications Co.), glassware, dishware and product advertising and packaging. The blonde and blue-eyed Keefe (this gleaned from a couple of articles describing her, but hard to tell from black & white photographs) initially studied higher mathematics at Los Angeles Community College, but decided to change her career focus after visiting Chicago’s Art Institute while on a trip to see the 1933-34 World’s Fair. She attended the Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles (now the California Institute of the Arts) to study painting. DN4938 Tammis Angels (Twinkle) DS4725 Unruly Reindeer (Green) During WWII, Keefe worked creating advertising design and packaging and as Art Director of Arts & Architecture magazine. Dorothy Wright Liebes offered her a position as a colorist and print designer in her San Francisco, and later in 1948, New York studios. Liebes is well known in the textile world for her unique weaving and color sense. Through Liebes, Keefe supplied printed textile designs to Goodall Industries, a major furnishings firm. Keefe attracted attention from the beginning with her graphic style and sense of color, and her name was promoted. DS4793 Later Alligator (Multi) Having lived and worked in California, she brought a carefree attitude to design and her travels around the world gave her inspiration. DN4932 Out To Lunch (Natural) Keefe’s first design “Persian Horseman” for Goodall was featured in advertisements and trade articles representing a trend in modern textiles. She designed home decorative lines for Golding Decorative Fabrics, Cyrus Clarke and Jud Williams Inc., and wallpaper for James Kemble Mills and Katzenbach & Warren. One of her designs originally created for Golding Decorative Fabrics, “Lemons” (chartreuse and orange color palette), was shown at the MoMA Good Design Exhibition of 1950 which also traveled to Europe. Keefe began to design handkerchiefs in the late 40’s after giving a friend a silk scarf she had designed as a birthday gift. It had “Happy Birthday” in large circus letters and candelabras in purple, turquoise, sapphire and chartreuse. The friend showed it to Lord & Taylor’s handkerchief buyer, who then showed it to J.H. Kimball, who commissioned six designs. Keefe designed the first order to appeal to different personalities including the sportswoman, antique collector and musician. They were bought up quickly and a very happy Lord & Taylor promoted her work and never stopped placing orders. The perfection of silk-screen printing on mass-produced fabric and the availability of colorfast dyes in many colors after World War II helped make this possible. During a time when many handkerchief designs were created anonymously, J.H. Kimball produced stylish silk-screened handkerchiefs with a signature at the corner. Of these, the most prolific was Tammis Keefe who created hundreds of handkerchief designs during her brief career, from 1944 to 1960. "Color is the most important factor in design generally, and in handkerchief design, specifically, color prepares the emotions for the design itself, as music sets the mood of the Play." ~ Tammis Keefe, 1952 Craft Horizons DS4714 Night Owl (Blue) DN4933 Contented Cats (Mustard) DS4714 Night Owl (Red) Name a theme or thing, and she most likely created a design for it. Her signed handkerchiefs printed on fine linen or cotton were a collector’s item even then during a time when the handkerchief was on the way out and Kleenex tissues were rapidly taking over. Her new handkerchief designs were eagerly awaited for by a public that could buy one for fifty cents to one dollar. Many people framed them to display on the wall. Other high-end stores around the country also sold her handkerchiefs. Each design was usually printed in up to six different colorways. Keefe also produced a second line of handkerchiefs for Kimball she signed Peg Thomas (the name her family called her at home plus her middle name) for retailers that wanted her look, but for marketing reasons couldn’t sell her Tammis Keefe signature line. Keefe planned a handkerchief design in pencil on tracing paper, then used a light box or graphite paper to transfer the sketch onto illustration board (designs were full size, usually 14¾ inches) and with four or five colors, painted designs in watercolors. This original design was then used as the master for the printer who transferred it onto finely woven linen with hand rolled hems. It would be a treasure indeed to find one of her croquis (original hand painted designs). In a 1949 San Francisco Chronicle article, while Keefe was in town promoting her new line of Christmas handkerchiefs which were being sold by the high end department store Joseph Magnin (Joseph was a son of I. Magnin and started his own store), she said, “Handkerchiefs are fun to do, and I try to make them fun to give.” "Whenever possible I like to introduce the three dimensional in prints. I like depth in a fabric. I also like the introduction of current objects treated artistically. Warm colors are my favorites: beige, tan, brown with the addition of some cool color for relief." ~Tammis Keefe 1948 American Fabrics Keefe worked without a staff, but sometimes engaged an assistant. She employed publicist, Rea Lubar, a renowned fashion industry publicist, which helped boost Keefe’s career and keep her witty personality and designs in the limelight. Not much is known of Keefe’s life, so any insights are to be relished. Following is a description of her studio apartment in Greenwich Village, New York (perhaps somewhere on East 10th Street) from a February 28, 1951 Christian Science Monitor article: “Being from California, I like things to be spacious, serene and simple, as well as colorful,” she (Keefe) says. So white, gray, green, black and vermilion red pleasingly companion one another in her living room. One long white wall is broken by a simple, low fireplace of black slate, framed by big leafy plants. Opposite the white wall is a blue-green one, against which she has placed a six-foot, white marble-topped table (used for her informal buffet suppers), and a platinum gray couch with Kelly green cushions. Casement windows which line another blue-green wall are curtained with fabric of her own design in chartreuse, Kelly, and navy blue, which can be pulled straight across on a traverse rod to make a solid wall of drapery. A black 3 by 5 foot coffee table sits before her sofa, which is covered in a black nubby texture shot with gold thread. Pictures in the room are framed with white. The rug is gray, and the pillows placed here and there about the room are vermilion red. Though she indicates the tendency away from ‘sunshine colors,’ she has used them freely and effectively in the pleasant studio which adjoins her living room. The walls and ceiling are all white, but curtains are a lemon yellow and the couch is covered in orange, subtracting quickly any lurking ‘laboratory’ look.” DS4721 Tammis Cats (Red) DS4720 Tammis Dogs (Red) DS4721 Tammis Cats (Gray) DS4721 Tammis Dogs (Gray) Keefe also stated in this same article, “Cloth is one of the most beautiful and vibrant things in the world.” And further said that, “Anything is possible in textile design, if it is done correctly. A designer merely starts with something, anything, and then develops it. To an imaginative person, practically anything suggests a starting point. From then on, it is merely stating what you have to say in design.” Tammis Keefe surely did this during her brief, but very creative and fruitful life. ~~~~~~~~~~~ The above exhaustive background info researched by Marlene Radigue (thanks Marlene!) • We wish to thank Ms. Karen Liebert for all the information she had researched already to create a genealogy of Ms. Keefe, which we used extensively in our own research. • We also wish to thank Ruth Stone Berg, direct cousin of Tammis Keefe, who, along with information, supplied the beautiful photograph of Tammis.
Vintage Tammis Keefe Handkerchief hankie Flourishes, drawing of BIRDS beige, brown and black Measures 15" square made of Fine Linen IN EXCELLENT CONDITION no stains or holes
Tammis Keefe (1913-1960) designed textiles in the 1940s and 1950s, so her wonderful illustrations were mainly applied to household linens such as T-towels and handkerchiefs. Her designs have such fun and humour that I wish she had made children's books to.
Vintage Unused Designer Tammis Keefe "BEACH" Hankie c.1950's Very good unused condition Hand rolled - orange 14 3/4" x 14 1/2"
Make your Christmas extra jolly with this delightfully festive matchbox featuring Santa and his friends by designer Tammis Keefe. Ignite your holiday spirit with this giant matchbox from Archivist and light up your life (literally!) this season! Discover the [Large Match Boxes Collection](https://playoffside.com/collections/large-match-boxes "Large Matchboxes"). Product information - Contains 45 matches, each measuring 280mm Long - Wrapped in a compostable cello - Dimensions 290 x 60 x 50 mm Reference: BX44
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Born Margaret Thomas Keefe, and called Peg by her family (which is Gaelic for Thomas), Tammis Keefe is one of the great names of hankie and textile design collecting. She was born in 1913, and in t…
Smitten with Tammis Keefe's 1940's hankie prints.
Mid-century linen tea towel by artist Tammis Keefe in turquoise blue, cream and tan. Features a smiling "mother" cat surrounded by her five kittens and tiny mice. Keefe worked as a textile designer in New York in the forties and fifties. She freelanced for various home decorative lines designing scarves, dish towels and even wallpaper. Her popularity grew as she became known for her whimsical, colorful designs. In 1948 a firm named J.H. Kimball commissioned Keefe to create a line of hankerchiefs for Lord & Taylor. Those hankerchiefs are highly sought after today by collectors. Tammis Keefe's work can be found at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cooper Hewitt and the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Condition: Excellent Vintage Condition.
Already, one of the most important mid century product news announcements of the year: Fabric designer Michael Miller is reissuing a whole host of vintage Tammis Keefe fabric designs, with the first wave coming into stores right now. Tammis Keefe was one of the most prolific textile designers during the heart of the baby boom years. Take a…
Already, one of the most important mid century product news announcements of the year: Fabric designer Michael Miller is reissuing a whole host of vintage Tammis Keefe fabric designs, with the first wave coming into stores right now. Tammis Keefe was one of the most prolific textile designers during the heart of the baby boom years. Take a…
After months and months of research, Ebay searches and purchases, we yearn to learn more of this interesting artist's too short life. It's with great pleasure we bring to you the wonderful designs of Tammis Keefe. Born Margaret Thomas Keefe on December 27, 1913 in Los Angeles, her father, Thomas Keefe, had passed away the week before she was born. Her family called her Peg, a common nickname for Margaret. Tammis (gaelic for Thomas) grew up in Los Angeles where she lived with her mother, aunts and grandparents. Handkerchiefs, linen kitchen towels and scarves are what Tammis Keefe is known for today because of their availability. However, she designed for home furnishing fabrics (Goodall Industries and Golding Decorative Fabrics), wallpaper, all manner of kitchen linens in addition to towels including tablecloths, placemats with matching napkin sets and cocktail napkins (Fallani & Cohn, Falfax All Linen and Goodall). She also designed sportswear shirts for men and women (Marlboro Shirt Company), Christmas cards (Irene Dash Greeting Card Co.), playing cards (Random Thoughts Publications Co.), glassware, dishware and product advertising and packaging. The blonde and blue-eyed Keefe (this gleaned from a couple of articles describing her, but hard to tell from black & white photographs) initially studied higher mathematics at Los Angeles Community College, but decided to change her career focus after visiting Chicago’s Art Institute while on a trip to see the 1933-34 World’s Fair. She attended the Chouinard Art School in Los Angeles (now the California Institute of the Arts) to study painting. DN4938 Tammis Angels (Twinkle) DS4725 Unruly Reindeer (Green) During WWII, Keefe worked creating advertising design and packaging and as Art Director of Arts & Architecture magazine. Dorothy Wright Liebes offered her a position as a colorist and print designer in her San Francisco, and later in 1948, New York studios. Liebes is well known in the textile world for her unique weaving and color sense. Through Liebes, Keefe supplied printed textile designs to Goodall Industries, a major furnishings firm. Keefe attracted attention from the beginning with her graphic style and sense of color, and her name was promoted. DS4793 Later Alligator (Multi) Having lived and worked in California, she brought a carefree attitude to design and her travels around the world gave her inspiration. DN4932 Out To Lunch (Natural) Keefe’s first design “Persian Horseman” for Goodall was featured in advertisements and trade articles representing a trend in modern textiles. She designed home decorative lines for Golding Decorative Fabrics, Cyrus Clarke and Jud Williams Inc., and wallpaper for James Kemble Mills and Katzenbach & Warren. One of her designs originally created for Golding Decorative Fabrics, “Lemons” (chartreuse and orange color palette), was shown at the MoMA Good Design Exhibition of 1950 which also traveled to Europe. Keefe began to design handkerchiefs in the late 40’s after giving a friend a silk scarf she had designed as a birthday gift. It had “Happy Birthday” in large circus letters and candelabras in purple, turquoise, sapphire and chartreuse. The friend showed it to Lord & Taylor’s handkerchief buyer, who then showed it to J.H. Kimball, who commissioned six designs. Keefe designed the first order to appeal to different personalities including the sportswoman, antique collector and musician. They were bought up quickly and a very happy Lord & Taylor promoted her work and never stopped placing orders. The perfection of silk-screen printing on mass-produced fabric and the availability of colorfast dyes in many colors after World War II helped make this possible. During a time when many handkerchief designs were created anonymously, J.H. Kimball produced stylish silk-screened handkerchiefs with a signature at the corner. Of these, the most prolific was Tammis Keefe who created hundreds of handkerchief designs during her brief career, from 1944 to 1960. "Color is the most important factor in design generally, and in handkerchief design, specifically, color prepares the emotions for the design itself, as music sets the mood of the Play." ~ Tammis Keefe, 1952 Craft Horizons DS4714 Night Owl (Blue) DN4933 Contented Cats (Mustard) DS4714 Night Owl (Red) Name a theme or thing, and she most likely created a design for it. Her signed handkerchiefs printed on fine linen or cotton were a collector’s item even then during a time when the handkerchief was on the way out and Kleenex tissues were rapidly taking over. Her new handkerchief designs were eagerly awaited for by a public that could buy one for fifty cents to one dollar. Many people framed them to display on the wall. Other high-end stores around the country also sold her handkerchiefs. Each design was usually printed in up to six different colorways. Keefe also produced a second line of handkerchiefs for Kimball she signed Peg Thomas (the name her family called her at home plus her middle name) for retailers that wanted her look, but for marketing reasons couldn’t sell her Tammis Keefe signature line. Keefe planned a handkerchief design in pencil on tracing paper, then used a light box or graphite paper to transfer the sketch onto illustration board (designs were full size, usually 14¾ inches) and with four or five colors, painted designs in watercolors. This original design was then used as the master for the printer who transferred it onto finely woven linen with hand rolled hems. It would be a treasure indeed to find one of her croquis (original hand painted designs). In a 1949 San Francisco Chronicle article, while Keefe was in town promoting her new line of Christmas handkerchiefs which were being sold by the high end department store Joseph Magnin (Joseph was a son of I. Magnin and started his own store), she said, “Handkerchiefs are fun to do, and I try to make them fun to give.” "Whenever possible I like to introduce the three dimensional in prints. I like depth in a fabric. I also like the introduction of current objects treated artistically. Warm colors are my favorites: beige, tan, brown with the addition of some cool color for relief." ~Tammis Keefe 1948 American Fabrics Keefe worked without a staff, but sometimes engaged an assistant. She employed publicist, Rea Lubar, a renowned fashion industry publicist, which helped boost Keefe’s career and keep her witty personality and designs in the limelight. Not much is known of Keefe’s life, so any insights are to be relished. Following is a description of her studio apartment in Greenwich Village, New York (perhaps somewhere on East 10th Street) from a February 28, 1951 Christian Science Monitor article: “Being from California, I like things to be spacious, serene and simple, as well as colorful,” she (Keefe) says. So white, gray, green, black and vermilion red pleasingly companion one another in her living room. One long white wall is broken by a simple, low fireplace of black slate, framed by big leafy plants. Opposite the white wall is a blue-green one, against which she has placed a six-foot, white marble-topped table (used for her informal buffet suppers), and a platinum gray couch with Kelly green cushions. Casement windows which line another blue-green wall are curtained with fabric of her own design in chartreuse, Kelly, and navy blue, which can be pulled straight across on a traverse rod to make a solid wall of drapery. A black 3 by 5 foot coffee table sits before her sofa, which is covered in a black nubby texture shot with gold thread. Pictures in the room are framed with white. The rug is gray, and the pillows placed here and there about the room are vermilion red. Though she indicates the tendency away from ‘sunshine colors,’ she has used them freely and effectively in the pleasant studio which adjoins her living room. The walls and ceiling are all white, but curtains are a lemon yellow and the couch is covered in orange, subtracting quickly any lurking ‘laboratory’ look.” DS4721 Tammis Cats (Red) DS4720 Tammis Dogs (Red) DS4721 Tammis Cats (Gray) DS4721 Tammis Dogs (Gray) Keefe also stated in this same article, “Cloth is one of the most beautiful and vibrant things in the world.” And further said that, “Anything is possible in textile design, if it is done correctly. A designer merely starts with something, anything, and then develops it. To an imaginative person, practically anything suggests a starting point. From then on, it is merely stating what you have to say in design.” Tammis Keefe surely did this during her brief, but very creative and fruitful life. ~~~~~~~~~~~ The above exhaustive background info researched by Marlene Radigue (thanks Marlene!) • We wish to thank Ms. Karen Liebert for all the information she had researched already to create a genealogy of Ms. Keefe, which we used extensively in our own research. • We also wish to thank Ruth Stone Berg, direct cousin of Tammis Keefe, who, along with information, supplied the beautiful photograph of Tammis.
Funky blue & purple roosters on this Tammis Keefe designer hankie. Somewhat of a folk art pattern, nicely hand rolled edge. Measures 14 1/2" square. Condition is very good, nice vibrant colors. No damage or stains. A beautiful hankie for a collection! RETURN POLICY: PLEASE READ BEFORE YOU BUY FROM US! Our Little Lost Cat says: "No returns from Dogbodies!" (her scornful word for people who own dogs)-" She states, "If you're a Dogbody, don't even ask.--And if you're a Cat-tree" (Her word for people who like cats! (or Catperch if you're sitting!) "you're much to nice to return something anyway!" Regardless of what our Little Cat Princess says, the majority of buyers on Etsy are very nice people, so if there is a problem we can usually work it out with you. ---LOL, Even if you are a "Dogbody!"
Tammis Keefe Tea Towel Linen Mid Century 16.5”x28” Vintage but in good condition, no issues
