Wednesday 23 February 2011

EKCO exchange

Today we were visited by Ken Crowe, Keeper of Human History at Southend Museums Service http://www.southendmuseums.co.uk/. He came to see us to swap information on Ekco (E.K. Cole Ltd) plastics. Ekco's Plastics Divison was located at Southend-on-Sea and the Museums Service there has built up a significant collection of all manner of Ekco related material. This collection has been assessed as one of the best business archives in the country.  A selection from it will be displayed in the autumn in an exhibition entitled Designed for Living EKCO 1922-1970. Ken was able to tell us that a number of unmarked mouldings were made by Ekco so thank you Ken.

 
Some years ago MoDiP received a large gift from Martyn Rowlands, the first Chief Designer at the Ekco Plastics Division, and  we were, as a result, able to identify the items illustrated here, which are also in the collection at Southend, as having been designed by Rowlands.







Martyn Rowlands was made an Honorary Fellow of  the University in 2002 in recognition of this outstanding gift. Sadly he died two years later.


Susan Lambert (Head of MoDiP)

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