Arts and Crafts Wallpaper

Choosing Arts and Crafts wallpaper

Where it works

These designs were drawn for the rooms of 1880 and they still suit them: a dado-railed hallway, a dining room, a study lined with books. Of the cream-ground Morris designs, Willow Bough Blue and Fruit Light are the ones for bedrooms and landings, since the open ivory between the branches keeps the wall light. The dark grounds, Engraved Peony in woodcut line on charcoal or Brown Leaves on near-black, need lamplight and a room you sit in at night. Strawberry Thief Red has enough colour to hold a small room by itself, a cloakroom or a snug.

Picking between the designs

Begin with the originals if you want the real thing: Pimpernel Green, Golden Lily, Persian, Larkspur, Acanthus and Snakeshead are all Morris patterns reproduced from his drawings and recoloured for rooms of today. Then the designs in the manner: Sage Poppy with dusty poppies inside sage linework, Crimson Thistle with its large inked thistle heads, Pink Tulip in strict mirrored pairs, Sage Damask with a Victorian mirrored repeat. The dark florals, Ink Peony, Rust Chrysanthemum and Midnight Lotus, borrow the density of Morris but paint the blooms rather than drawing them. Density is the real decision: Morris's own designs cover the ground almost completely, so if you want breathing room choose Fruit Light, Willow Bough or Larkspur.

Related

The Morris originals have their own page, William Morris wallpaper; the wider period is in vintage wallpaper and the sinuous later designs in Art Nouveau wallpaper. For where the movement came from, read What is the Arts and Crafts movement.