Renowned maker Marthe Armitage creates and hand-prints her wallpapers from lino blocks in her studio in Chiswick, in London. Her intricate wallpaper designs, available through archive and hand-printed wallpaper specialists Hamilton Weston, are more popular than ever, and she is still designing at 84 and printing industriously. Her fans will be delighted that she has now transferred six of her original hand lino-cut designs onto screen printed fabrics, in a simple colour palette of six colours.

A recent photo of Marthe Armitage in her Chiswick studio.

‘Grapevine’, in ochre.

‘Marrow’ in slate blue.

‘Blackberry’, in off-white.

‘Chestnut’ in soft green.

‘Thistle’ in slate green.

The six base cloths are Natural Beige or Off-white 100% linen and 3 linen/cotton mixes in fine to course weaves. Each of the designs can be printed on any of the cloths and in any of the sample colours as standard – Minimum order 1 metre.

The standard print colours are: Soft Green – Red Earth –  Ochre  – Slate Grey green – Slate Blue – Black – Off White. Fabric Custom colouring is also available (minimum order 5 metres). Prices for the fabrics are: Linen  £180.00 inc.Vat per metre and Voile £ 138 inc. Vat per metre. 15% discount on orders of 20+ metres

Four of these designs (Chestnut, Hayfield, Marrow, Blackberry) can also be digitally printed as wide-width wallpapers on a non woven base with textured  background  effect if required. Supplied in fabric width x 5m rolls, min. order 1 roll (5m) @ £102 inc. VAT per metre. Discounts for larger orders.

Born in 1930 to Dutch parents, Marthe studied Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art where her particular interest was painting .  She married into a creative family, her late husband was an architect, and her father in law an architectural sculptor. Bringing up three children, she found little time for painting and instead set about decorating her house with her own imaginative hand drawn designs which she cut from lino blocks. These were originally printed by placing the paper on the floor, and standing on the blocks! Marthe soon found a neglected litho printing press, which she purchased for £100 and she uses the same hand press today in her small Chiswick studio.

Marthe is a member and a past Master of the Artworkers’ Guild, a Society of artists craftsmen and designers founded originally by leading lights of the Arts and Crafts movement.  Illustrious past Masters include William Morris, Walter Crane, Voysey,  Arthur Rackham to name a few. Marthe was elected Master in 1993.

As well as being sold in Britain, Marthe Armitage’s wallpapers are exported across Europe to Russia, China, Australia, and the US.   Her creativity is undiminished, and there is often another inspirational design appearing on her drawing board. See video link :   http://youtu.be/X0VMLZm-BNo

To order from: Hamilton Weston Wallpapers. See the Marthe Armitage Gallery on www.hamiltonweston.com