Beauty, Morality & Voluptuousness

The recent Cult of Beauty exhibition at the V&A has transferred to the Musee D'Orsay in Paris, with the rather clunky new title "Beauty, Morals & Voluptuousness in the England of Oscar Wilde".  We figured that the chance to see the four objects borrowed from MoDA's collections in such a fabulous setting was too good to miss, so we booked our Eurostar tickets.

The show focuses on the Aesthetic Movement which flourished in Britain in the 1860s.  Arguably, it wasn't so much a 'movement' in the sense of having a thought-through manifesto or clear plan to change anything.  Its main driver was the desire of a literary and artistic elite (Oscar Wilde foremost among them), to differentiate themselves from the masses by their ability to choose beautiful things for their houses, rather than the 'inferior and ugly' mass produced products that were within reach of everybody else.

Japanese Katagami Stencil, late nineteenth century.  

Part of the Silver Studio collection, 

Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, K1.1

currently on loan to the Musee D'Orsay, Paris

The result was 'Art for Art's Sake'; a rejection of the Victorian principles of order and morality and a greater emphasis on sensuality and beauty.  The exhibition ranges widely, including paintings, ceramics, book design, textiles and furniture.  In a sense, it's all spread a bit thinly, with not much to hold it together other than that "here are some beautiful objects".  Which is, in itself, a good reason to see it.  Plus, if you have room for another sensual pleasure after all that beauty, we can recommend the hot chocolate in the museum's cafe.

The exhibition continues until January 15th 2012, at the Musee D'Orsay, Paris.

MoDA Photography Setup

Lights in working position

The new photography equipment is finally in place and working, it has taken a little longer than expected due to a few technical glitches but it's here now and has been used for a licensing job already. The new table in the image rises up and down by a near silent electric motor, this is to enable small objects to be brought closer to the camera so that they can be brought into focus, it drops down for large objects too.

The lights are mounted on pantographs which in turn are mounted on rails thus enabling a lot more flexibility in the lighting angles that can be achieved. The big black curtains can be pulled around the photography area thereby isolating the area from the rest of the Conservation Studio. Even the ceiling lights in this area can be controlled separately and can be switched of when photographing, in that way the mixing of different colour temperatures can be reduced. The way the lights are now set up (more flexibly) should allow much more creativity in lighting for instance for photographing three dimensional objects.

Lights and curtains in storage position

I intend to give the whole set up a thorough testing over the coming weeks. In the meantime we can look forward to providing high quality images of our collections on request!

WIN A COPY OF OUR NEW BOOK

Petal Power: Floral fashion and women designers at the Silver Studio 1910-1940

by Keren Protheroe

We are pleased to announce that the book to complement our Petal Power exhibition is now available. We are so excited with it that we are giving away a copy for free! See below for details about the competition and how to order your own copy. But first some information about the book to whet your appetite.

Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture (SD1578)

The book examines the work of women employed by the Silver Studio of design between 1910 and 1940. The Silver Studio produced designs for many of Britain’s most fashionable retailers and respected manufacturers, including Liberty & Co, Selfridges, AH Lee & Sons, and Graftons Fabrics.

Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture (SD937)

Between 1910 and 1940, thanks largely to its female workers, the Studio established a reputation for producing designs for dress prints alongside its existing work for furnishing fabrics. The hand-drawn and painted textile designs produced by the Silver Studio’s women designers map the floral trends for printed cottons, silks, chiffons and rayons which were the fashion fabrics of inter-war England.

Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture (SD1454)

The book can be ordered by sending a cheque payable to MUV LTD to the address below for £7.50 & £2.25 post & packing. If you prefer to pay by credit or debit card please call and leave your contact details and someone will call you back.

For a chance to win a copy of Petal Power answer the following question:
In ‘Petal Power’ who were the female designers employed by?

Choose from the following three answers:

A. Silver Factory

B. Silver Studio

C. Gold Mine

Email your answer to moda@mdx.ac.uk by 5pm on 30th November 2011 with Petal Power Book as the message title.

Book details:
· Paperback – 42 pages
· Illustrations in colour
· Publisher: Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture (Nov 2011)
· Language English
· ISBN-13: 978-0-9565340-1-9
· Product Dimensions: 21 x 15 x 0.5 cm

Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, Middlesex University,
MoDA Collection Centre, 9 Boulevard Drive,

Beaufort Park, London NW9 5HF

Telephone: 020 8411 5244

The Petal Power exhibition is the first of MoDA’s touring exhibitions and was launched at the Knitting & Stitching Show in Alexandra Palace in October and soon to tour to other venues. From visitor comments received at the show, we know that many of you really enjoyed our exhibition and expressed an interest in the book. Well the book is now available to you and to everybody else. We look forward to receiving both your competition entry and your book order.

on the trail of a mystery wallpaper

Here at MoDA we often receive enquiries from museums and historic houses wanting our help in identifying unusual wallpapers. Unusual wallpaper is frequently uncovered as part of the restoration of an old building, and finding out about the wallpaper can reveal important details about the tastes, income level and aspirations of the people who lived there at the time.

We recently received an enquiry about this wallpaper, from Sagtikos Manor in New York, which dates from around 1902:

We're pretty sure it wasn't designed by the Silver Studio; the peacocks are very unlike anything else designed by Silver Studio designers at the time, and it doesn't appear in the Studio's surviving photographic records. However, the trees are a bit similar to those in this wallpaper, which was always attributed to Rex Silver:

SW1161, Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture

This is a mystery we haven't yet been able to solve - if you have any thoughts about who might have designed the peacock wallpaper, do let us know!

Working with artists and creative people

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of the range of collaborative projects we undertake with artists and creative people.  We are constantly amazed and impressed by the innovative ways in which people use MoDA's collections as inspiration for new work.

For many artists wanting to research our collections the first point of contact will be with Maggie Wood, Assistant Curator. Artists discuss their research requirements with Maggie and make an appointment to use the Study Room at our Collections Centre. For the professional and experienced artist this process is often straightforward as they will usually have already conducted some research in advance and have a clear idea of what they want to achieve.

Before long they are in the Study room sifting through designs, samples and other ephemera for inspiration. We are currently working with Felicity Ford, a sound artist, on the Sonic Wallpapers project. We commissioned Felicity to undertake a research project based on audio responses to wallpaper. The idea is that the project will result in a MoDA touring exhibition, and is a clear example of how mutally beneficial collaboration can be.

Sonic Artist, Felicity Ford

New and less experienced artists have often not had much interaction with museums or experience of producing something with a public outcome. So MoDA's role is to reach out to new artists, including Middlesex students, and in doing so smooth the path to collaboration. We work with academics from the University's Art & Design department offering student introductions to the museum's collections and 'real life' projects incorporated into student courses. This approach enables students to understand the relevance and use of museum collections and teaches them vital employability skills.

At the same time we also run an annual competition for Final Year Art & Design undergraduates at Middlesex University. To enter the Arthur Silver Award students must use the museum's collections in the development of any piece of studio work. The winner of the award receives a cash prize of £1000. Publicity for this year's Award is launched this week and we hope that entries will be of similarly high standard to last year - see previous posts relating to the Arthur Silver Award and to Kerry Howley, winner of last year's award. Final year students thinking about entering for this year's award need to hand in their entries by the 18th May 2012.

MoDA's Arthur Silver Award Winner, 2011, Kerry Howley

Look out for a future post by Maggie revealing the variety of research recently undertaken at MoDA.