Raymond Elston

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Raymond Elston was a British textile designer, furniture designer and abstract artist. He was influenced by abstract expressionism and modernist ideas, and he is remembered for his early work with Terence Conran and for the mobiles he showed in the early 1950s with the Constructionist Group.

Not much is known about his early life, but he studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts from 1948 to 1951, where Victor Pasmore taught and where he met Anthony Hill and Terence Conran. In 1951 he worked with Conran, making denim clothes for the David Whitehead textile company and, with Conran and Gill Pickles, making wood and metal furniture. He shared a flat with Anthony Hill on Sloane Court West after Conran moved out.

By 1964 he was designing interiors and furniture for Contract Interiors Ltd at 203 Kings Road, London. Some of his work appears in Terence Conran’s books. He had been a member of the Chelsea Arts Club from at least 1993. In 1994 he was interviewed by Nicholas Ind for a biography of Conran, which recounts Elston’s early experiences with Conran and Hill.

His style was abstract and modernist, focusing on mobiles, stabiles and furniture. He is best remembered for his mobiles, reflecting Alexander Calder’s influence, but most of his career involved textiles and furniture design and decoration, often in collaboration with Conran. He exhibited with Adrian Hill and the Constructionist Group from 1951 to 1953, with Conran joining the Third Weekend Exhibition. Neither Elston nor Conran pursued later fine-art shows, and Conran reportedly felt there was little interest in their early work.