The Art of Wallpaper Morris & Co Dovecot Studios review 28th January 2022
The Art of Wallpaper - Morris & Co is at Dovecot Studios Edinburgh from 28 January to 11 June, and if you have any interest in William Morris, The Arts & Crafts Movement, or just design in general then this well-curated exhibition is one to put into your diary to visit.
The Art of Wallpaper is an appropriate name to this exhibition as not only are the designs art in their own rights, but wallpaper is one of the most common ways that most of us interact with art and design in our daily lives as we plan (subconsciously or not) the room spaces in which we live.
Although the exhibition obviously has a large focus on the works of William Morris as a designer and later his own production company, there is far more to this show as this is a wonderful display of not only The Art of Wallpaper, but also a celebration of some of the most famous designers contributing to this art form and the enormous technical skills of the artisans that brought their designs to print – the block-makers and the printers.
We live today in a digital world where we are used to casually having almost any image we can imagine before us on our screens to view, and some, if not many, of the wallpaper designs on display here may be familiar to visitors already, but this is where the familiarity will stop. This exhibition is a perfect example of what the digital image cannot convey completely as nothing really prepares you for seeing some of these wallpapers up close and being able to admire, perhaps even wonder at, the skills of the designers and those involved in the production of their visions. Here on display are designs so skilfully produced that you would think at first that they are delicate water colours and not block prints. At the other extreme end we have designs printed onto leather that are embossed and lacquered almost like suits of old Japanese armour. In between we have designers and printers playing with an apparently never-ending variety of papers, textures and design and print techniques.
The main period of wallpapers coming into interior design use was in the Victorian period, and although industrialisation and mass production were to eventually make wallpapers available to many people, some of the works on display here were produced for a very selective and wealthy clientele with hundreds of pounds available to spend on a single sheet of wallpaper. Many of these individually hand crafted papers can quite rightly be called works of art in their own right. The skill of the high end hand-crafted and very expensive wallpaper is still alive today, and I doubt if when this exhibition was being planned and curated that it was ever imagined that the cost of a roll of wallpaper would be raising questions for debate in the Palace of Westminster. Interestingly, this exhibition actually has some original wallpaper from that very building too.
A large focus of this exhibition of course comes out of the design ethos of William Morris and the Arts & Crafts Movement. A movement that had no specific design rules but more of a “way to live and experience design” of course allowed a huge freedom of artistic and individual expression, and this is all reflected in the wallpapers and room designs on display. People always say that good design and quality of production will always have a place in this world, and the fact that many of the original wallpaper designs of William Morris are still available at a price that reflects the skills and materials used in their production proves that to still be a truism. There are also of course works here by other important designers of the 19th and 20th Century such as Owen Jones, Walter Crane, Dresser, Pugin, and Voysey, and their work for high profile companies of the day such as Jeffrey & Co, Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd and Morris & Co are well represented here.
It is a little bit ironic that a movement that wanted to turn its back on the modern industrial world and return to a purer more individual artisan world would over the years be known to millions of people worldwide with the designs of William Morris in particular being printed on a huge range of products by the most mass produced industrial processes of today.
The visually impressive and highly educational exhibition is curated by Mary Schoeser, and produced by Dovecot Studios with the Sanderson Design Group Archive.
Review by Tom King (c) 2022
ARTS REVIEWS EDINBURGH
The Art of Wallpaper is an appropriate name to this exhibition as not only are the designs art in their own rights, but wallpaper is one of the most common ways that most of us interact with art and design in our daily lives as we plan (subconsciously or not) the room spaces in which we live.
Although the exhibition obviously has a large focus on the works of William Morris as a designer and later his own production company, there is far more to this show as this is a wonderful display of not only The Art of Wallpaper, but also a celebration of some of the most famous designers contributing to this art form and the enormous technical skills of the artisans that brought their designs to print – the block-makers and the printers.
We live today in a digital world where we are used to casually having almost any image we can imagine before us on our screens to view, and some, if not many, of the wallpaper designs on display here may be familiar to visitors already, but this is where the familiarity will stop. This exhibition is a perfect example of what the digital image cannot convey completely as nothing really prepares you for seeing some of these wallpapers up close and being able to admire, perhaps even wonder at, the skills of the designers and those involved in the production of their visions. Here on display are designs so skilfully produced that you would think at first that they are delicate water colours and not block prints. At the other extreme end we have designs printed onto leather that are embossed and lacquered almost like suits of old Japanese armour. In between we have designers and printers playing with an apparently never-ending variety of papers, textures and design and print techniques.
The main period of wallpapers coming into interior design use was in the Victorian period, and although industrialisation and mass production were to eventually make wallpapers available to many people, some of the works on display here were produced for a very selective and wealthy clientele with hundreds of pounds available to spend on a single sheet of wallpaper. Many of these individually hand crafted papers can quite rightly be called works of art in their own right. The skill of the high end hand-crafted and very expensive wallpaper is still alive today, and I doubt if when this exhibition was being planned and curated that it was ever imagined that the cost of a roll of wallpaper would be raising questions for debate in the Palace of Westminster. Interestingly, this exhibition actually has some original wallpaper from that very building too.
A large focus of this exhibition of course comes out of the design ethos of William Morris and the Arts & Crafts Movement. A movement that had no specific design rules but more of a “way to live and experience design” of course allowed a huge freedom of artistic and individual expression, and this is all reflected in the wallpapers and room designs on display. People always say that good design and quality of production will always have a place in this world, and the fact that many of the original wallpaper designs of William Morris are still available at a price that reflects the skills and materials used in their production proves that to still be a truism. There are also of course works here by other important designers of the 19th and 20th Century such as Owen Jones, Walter Crane, Dresser, Pugin, and Voysey, and their work for high profile companies of the day such as Jeffrey & Co, Arthur Sanderson & Sons Ltd and Morris & Co are well represented here.
It is a little bit ironic that a movement that wanted to turn its back on the modern industrial world and return to a purer more individual artisan world would over the years be known to millions of people worldwide with the designs of William Morris in particular being printed on a huge range of products by the most mass produced industrial processes of today.
The visually impressive and highly educational exhibition is curated by Mary Schoeser, and produced by Dovecot Studios with the Sanderson Design Group Archive.
Review by Tom King (c) 2022
ARTS REVIEWS EDINBURGH
