Diana Springall: a stitch in time

_{^{Above: Diana Springall's Head of a Girl, 2015}}

Summary

Diana Springall, FRSA, is one of the UK’s most celebrated textile artists; she has spent the last 40 years amassing a collection of works that has now been acquired by the Sunbury Embroidery Gallery. The Gallery is committed to ensuring the public and future generations can enjoy the collection, but funding is needed to ensure the work can be showcased in the planned expansion to the Gallery, plans for which have already been approved. 

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Diana Springall’s world-renowned collection of British embroidery is set to find a permanent home at Sunbury Embroidery Gallery – but urgent funding is needed to ensure the collection is preserved and showcased for future generations.

Diana Springall never set out to be a collector.

While today she is one of the UK’s most celebrated textile artists and advocates for the art of embroidery, back in 1961 she was a teacher qualifying at Goldsmiths who simply needed some visual examples to show her students when they asked questions about embroidery. “I was a very keen teacher. I started collecting to have actual visual aids to learning.” Over the years her compendium grew, and it is now generally acknowledged as one of the most comprehensive collections of British embroidery and stitch-based textile art in the world.

Fast-forward to 2016, when Springall received a phone call from Robert Shaw and Barbara Robertson of the Sunbury Embroidery Gallery, in Sunbury-on-Thames, requesting a viewing. Springall had been thinking about where her collection might find a permanent home; she was relatively certain that an approach to the V&A, which had closed its textile gallery, would relegate her 250 pieces to indefinite storage – a fate she greatly wished to avoid. By contrast, says Springall, once Shaw and Robertson saw the collection, they immediately said, “If you give it to us, we will build an extension.” ​

In recent years, Sunbury and environs have developed as a hub for embroidery, with the Royal School of Needlework, Kingston University’s textile courses and the University of Creative Arts at Farnham all in the area. Given Springall’s commitment to promoting embroidery in the UK and beyond, this makes her collection’s new home an even more perfect match. Says Springall of the art form: “It’s community, it’s education, it’s the most wonderful skill. You can do it any level and any level is of value.”

The new, two-level purpose-designed space will include galleries to display permanent pieces from the collection as well as a large room for guest artists. The addition will also include a workshop and a study space, allowing for the Sunbury Gallery to move further towards its vision of becoming a ‘national centre for embroidery’.

Planning permission has been secured for the addition, and the fundraising of a projected £3.5m to proceed with construction is now in full swing. But, as Springall points out, “I am 86 years old, and there is no time to waste.” To expedite the process and avoid the possibility that the Springall collection might have to spend an interim period in storage, a corporate sponsor is now being sought to help fund the expansion of the gallery. Springall and the Sunbury Gallery are optimistic that the right donor will be found.

“The collection was built as a testimony to the wonder of this craft as an art,” says Springall, “it’s a very undervalued craft.”

This article was first published in RSA Journal Issue 4 2024.