Beauty is truth, but it can also be wallpaper
How to put real art by living artists on your walls via soft furnishings
More is more and less is a bore
It seems almost wrong to enjoy free entry to the Wallace Collection, that sumptuous trove behind Selfridges in Manchester Square. But as a national collection, this house of sexy joy and beauty is indeed free, every single day, for your delectation. Stepping over the threshold, a friendly official with a lanyard nods you into an almost absurdly grand setting of swirling banisters, velvet wallcoverings, chandeliers, huge glass fronted cabinets crowded with curvy, candy-coloured Sevres porcelain and on the walls, there is quite a lot of naked flesh within golden frames.
If you are at a loose end around Marble Arch, and why shouldn’t you be, it’s worth having a quick saunter around. There are the hits, of course. You can admire Fragonard’s Swing, Hals’ Laughing Cavalier (when it returns from Amsterdam, where it is on loan) and there is a whole lagoon’s worth of Venetian views by Canaletto, which gives a sort of cool authority over the hot goings-on elsewhere between virile gods and rosy goddesses. It knocks that enduring, studied, rather dull-by-now monochrome minimalism, which has held sway over so many of our houses and hotels for so long, into a cocked hat.
Rococo revels..The Swing, by Fragonard
Beside The Swing, and the other wonderful paintings, the Gainsboroughs and Van Dycks and Rembrandts, (which include a softly introspective portrait of his lost, only son Titus), the Wallace is above all a remarkable, if slightly unrealistic example of why beauty and design and pattern works so well when it is on the one hand dialled up to excess, but on the other, corralled to exist on a domestic scale. These showrooms, which include 25 galleries, were once proper rooms in a private house; people ate here, slept here, smoked here, played billiards here. The console tables with their curved mahogany legs inlaid with ivory, once held billet-doux; the Louis XIV clocks adorned by gilded naked putti, once ticked. Yes, the Great Gallery was always designed to hold works of art but viewed in privacy only by the residents of the house. The pictures are domestically sized; the wallpaper is to be admired at close quarters.
And so, after last week’s Art Stack celebrated the joys of mid-century crockery, this week is dedicated to honour luxurious, abundant print and pattern for the everyday house, particularly from one Yorkshire company whose luxurious coverings and fabrics references the actual artists who originally created them, with 20% royalties on each order. Imagine commissioning William Morris wallpaper from Mr Morris himself. It’s a bit like that.
I came across Monkey Puzzle Tree when I divorced, and had a whole new home of my own to decorate. The fact that this company, founded in Leeds by designer and businessperson Charlotte Raffo, has a social conscience as well as a highly maximalist vibe is win-win for me. You can order wallpaper, lampshades, cushions and curtains and the artist who designed the work actually gets paid, directly. Plus, all the artists come from the north of England.
Hence a design like Metamorphosis, which comes in linen and is perfect for curtains, has been designed by illustrator Kirsty Greenwood. You can log onto a video and see her at work in her Newcastle studio.
The gorgeous Metamorphosis on curtains
The pattern references Klimt and Schiele as well as fairy tales and the work of Arthur Rackham or the almost criminally forgotten Australian illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, whose book The Enchanted Forest was one of my childhood favourites. I lie in bed and my eye just moves around the line. It is very restful.
For those who are into the Seventies vibe, there is actual cork wallpaper. Hit the North, for those of us who love anything north of the Gap, is a joy. It is designed by Drew Millward and celebrates “creativity and industry of the North of England”. Factory buildings, chimneys and a post-industrial landscape are all championed.
Hit The North..how many references can you spot?
One thing I learned when doing up my house, is that more is actually more and less is indeed a bore. Iris Apfel was right. Putting together jazzy prints, exciting wallpaper and curtains bursting with line and colour was a leap of faith but I channeled my inner Richard Wallace and went forward bravely. Plus, I knew that while I was creating a lovely place to live, I was also helping artists in the north of England carry on doing their thing. Which feels good.
Thank you so much for featuring our wallpapers and fabrics! Your house is truly an inspiration, both because it is stunning, but also because it feels like a real home that reflects and celebrates the personalities of its owners.