Frank Carpay

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Frank Carpay (1917 – 1985) was a New Zealand designer.

He was born in the Netherlands and was trained at the Hertogenbosch Technical School in Holland.

After the Second World War he was made design director (1946-1950) at Het Edele Ambacht, a small manufactory of ceramics, glass,furniture, and metalwork.

After leaving the company in 1950 he travelled to the south of France where he met Pablo Picasso and worked at the Madoura Pottery in Valauris, France in 1950. At Picasso's insistence, Carpay met with two other pottery decorators, Roger Capron and Roger Picault, also working in Vallauris.

Carpay established his own small commercial pottery, Ambacht Volendam, producing hand-decorated ceramics. Unfortunately the business was not a success and closed and he returned to work as a graphic designer.

While unemployed Carpay had written directly to the Mayor of Auckland (John Allum) for the name of a pottery where he could find work. This letter was passed to Tom Clark of Crown Lynn who was developing a "Specials Department" and actively recruiting. Carpay arrived in 1953 and joined other artisans including Mirek Smisek and Ernest Shufflebottom. The intent of the "Specials Department" was to produce more upmarket works from Crown Lynn's existing commerial production-line wares. Carpay immediately began to use his existing ideas on numerous readymade production line blanks. These one-off designs were meant to go into wider production as part of the Handwerk range but although his work was accepted into art society exhibition and was critically acclaimed the designs were not well received by consumers. In 1956 Carpay was laid off.

Carpay remained in New Zealand and tried to break into graphic design related work. Unable to do so he exhibited paintings, gave pot decorating demonstrations and completed mural commissions. Carpay also taught at Howick District High School. The art equipment and resources of the school allowed him to develop his screen-printing techniques in the late 1950s and he began to work in fabric design and printing. He established a screen printing studio in his basement and started with placemats inspired by Maori rock drawings. In doing so he joined a number of other artists also using these motifs as artistic inspiration at the time including Theo Schoon, A. R. D. Fairburn, and Gordon Walters.

Carpay developed his screenprinting business Frank Carpay Designs Limited and branched out into beach towels and beach wear printing onto white towelling. His designs and products immediately gained acceptance in the emerging youth market.

When a shipment of imported fabric was found to be faulty in the early 1970s the business was unable to survive and he returned to design commissions.

Frank Carpay died in 1985. In 2000 his wife donated an extensive collection of ceramics, textiles, drawings and prints to the Hawke's Bay Museum.