1960s Wallpaper

My last visit to the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture was to research the Silver Studio collection and in particular to look at designs from the 1930s and 40s.  You can read my previous post for details of the visit here if you like.

In today's visit, I moved up to date and into the 1960s.  I started by looking at large wallpaper books from a company called John Line Ltd.  Sim, the archivist at MoDA who showed me the work, said these papers wern't mass produced, but produced in a speciality niche way. These were screenprinted so the colours were incredibly dense with a matt chalky quality.    Most designs had 3 colourways.  I was attracted most by the 'dabby' mark making which brought to mind Henry Moore. These wallpapers looked like they might have had African influences. Printed in two colours, a rich dark grey alongside a fresh yet subtle secondary colour.

This print could not have been from any other era but the 1960s.

These yummy  line and stripe designs, felt very contemporary.

Into figurative mode now, but in a very similar colour palette to the stripes, look at these charming bird wallpapers - so lovely!

I'll upload some of the fabrics and colour swatch books I saw too in my next post...

All images shown here are copyright The Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, Middlesex University.  Visit their website: http://www.moda.mdx.ac.uk/