Josef Frank had a distinguished career of two halves in two different countries – famous architect in Austria and beloved designer in Sweden.

A recent poll named Frank the most influential designer in Sweden, and yet he was in his 50s when he arrived in Sweden in 1933. Over the next 20 years together with Estrid Ericson, Frank developed textiles, lighting, glassware and interiors for Svenskt Tenn.

The first-ever UK exhibition of Frank’s textiles, showcases designs that are full of colour and pattern, optimistic and fun, using large motives often inspired by plants and animals. The designs are distinctively his and do not appear to belong to a particular fashion or time. They were made some 70 years ago and yet they feel completely modern.

Svenskt Tenn exists to this day and still produces many of Frank’s design with the same focus on craftsmanship and high quality, ‘made in Sweden’ that he and Estrid Ericson stood for since its foundation in 1924.

Frank’s first career was as an architect in Austria. His buildings belong to the modernism of the 1920s, famously represented by Bauhaus architects such as Walter Gropius or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

But, unlike those modernist architects, Frank wanted to create a comfortable home rather than a perfect showpiece. He adhered to the philosophy of ‘accidentalism’. In Frank’s own words, “there is nothing wrong with mixing old and new, with combining different furniture styles, colours and patterns. Things that you like will automatically fuse to form a relaxing entity.”

Frank believed that pattern is more relaxing than uniform colours and considered up to eight patterns in one room perfect. Nothing is the same as anything else as you can see in the example interior below that is shown in the London exhibition. A man with heart and of our times.