Jacqueline Groag was a pioneer at the forefront of the Modernist movement in the early-to-mid 20th century. A former student of Josef Hoffman and a textile designer for the Wiener Werkstätte, Groag excelled in patterns that were both avant-garde and naively charming. Having fled Austria for London in 1939, Groag was very well positioned to take a leading role in the post-war renaissance of British design. She was welcomed as an important asset because of her reputation and contributions to Viennese decorative arts, and worked for a variety of British textile firms, chief among them David Whitehead. Traffic Lights, with its rhythmic rows of plain and concentric circle-patterned rectangles, demonstrates her assured handling of color and her spontaneous draftsmanship.

This design is illustrated in Lesley Jackson, Twentieth-Century Pattern Design (2002), p. 101, Fig. 4.12. A different colorway of this design is also illustrated in Jacqueline Groag, Textile & Pattern Design: Wiener Werkstatte to American Modern (2009), plate #34.