Marthe armitage biography
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And because the company makes all products to order, clients can have any paper or fabric design in any hue imaginable. She now lives in a modern house designed by her architect son Jeremy and his wife, and the old family house now accommodates her studio, where she designs and produces her prints with her daughter Jo. In her book The Making of Marthe Armitage Artist and Patternmaker there is a chapter devoted to life by the river.
“I took one or two of my designs to interior designers in Fulham Rd but my designs weren’t fashionable”. To see all photos, visit the MILIEU Newsstand to purchase this issue in print or visit Zinio.com to purchase this issue in digital format. Watching village craftsmen at a local bazaar print patterns onto fabric, using simple wood blocks, was an experience which was to lead her to the idea of designing and printing wallpapers, using the technique of linocut.
As a young woman living in India, British artist Marthe Armitage was fascinated by the craftsmen she saw in local bazaar stalls, printing bedspreads with carved wooden blocks.
“People rather like the handmade aspect,” she says, “but we do make customers sign an agreement saying they understand there will be variations.”
For those who want a more precise execution—or who require large quantities of paper, or want greater width than is possible on the antique press—Broadhurst has been working with experts in computer-supported design and production, and the company’s growing digital line is gaining in popularity.
Whether they are printed by hand or by machine, Marthe Armitage’s designs all begin in exactly the same place they did over fifty years ago: her imagination.
They showed it in their showroom and the features editor from World of Interiors wrote a feature about it. She would be pleased to think of it being used in art schools and hopes it might give some inspiration to young artists just starting out.
You can buy Marthe’s wallpapers from Hamilton Weston – hamiltonweston.com
The book from marthearmitagebook.selz.com
and the fabrics from Marthe Armitage Prints Ltd – marthearmitage.co.uk
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Fortunately the family’s neighbour at number five was the head of the Chelsea School of Art, who encouraged her to pursue those vague artistic leanings.But then, around the year 2000, British wallpaper and fabric retailer Hamilton Weston featured some of her designs in a window display. “The river is so amazing, nobody can build on it, the tide goes up and down, there are the boats, the bird life, it’s endlessly fascinating” she told me. Music has a pattern.
She first did lino cuts at school, but at art school she learned drawing and painting. With the help of a friend in the magazine business, she found a used machine from the turn of the twentieth century. She worships at Christ Church on Turnham Green, where you can see one of her designs etched into the glass doors of the church. It’s available in a variety of covers – all hand blocked prints in her trademark muted colours.
She is one of only four female past masters.
She is also a born again Christian.
Usually I think it’s a failure and put it away. “Plants are really ideal for wallpaper,” she says, “because the plants grow upwards, in the direction of the paper, and they go into repeat beautifully.”
As Armitage’s confidence grew, so did her product line. The river is a source of inspiration for an artist and many of her motifs include plants, birds and animals.
As a nine year old she saw houses four and five Strand on the Green being built and as a young mother she walked her three children to school At Strand on the Green school.
She still uses lino in preference over other materials developed later, and still follows the same process of drawing, tracing, cutting out the pattern, inking and printing that she has all through her development as a pattern maker.
The way she works is to start with a grid of four boxes and draw her design in each, building it up bit by bit.
It’s the abstract part of figurative work.