The closure of the Little Gallery at the outbreak of World War II was closely followed by her involvement with the British Council as curator of the major The Exhibition of Modern British Crafts which opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1942 and toured the United States until 1945. It was followed in 1946 by the Exhibition of Rural Handicrafts from Great Britain which toured New Zealand and Australia. Between 1945 and 1957 she held the prestigious post of Crafts and Industrial Design Officer at the British Council. With a remit to demonstrate to the world the nature and vitality of contemporary crafts in the UK, sourcing, selecting and curating material for these exhibitions allowed her to deepen and broaden still further her knowledge of the British crafts scene. Rose was also one of the major driving forces behind the organisation of the Dartington Hall conference in 1952 that attracted international attention from potters and textile artists. In 1955 she published Artist Potters in England: the book that presented studio pottery as a defined movement for the first time. Her taste and discerning eye for quality and aesthetics is now legendary in the history of 20th century crafts. The inaugural relationship between Rose and the Crafts Study Centre was therefore a crucial factor in determining its direction. To attract donations for the collections, the exhibition 20th Century Craftsmanship was held in 1970 at the Holburne Museum of Menstrie 2 in Bath. The exhibition was driven by Rose along with the other co-founders including Robin Tanner, Henry Hammond and Marianne Straub. These donations form the nucleus of today’s collections. The credibility that she had established as a dealer in crafts during the mid-decades of the 20th century, showing the works at the Little Gallery of the very makers who were to support the Crafts Study Centre in its embryonic stages, meant that she was now acting as broker. Her deep
18 MURIEL ROSE: A MODERN CRAFTS LEGACY
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