Marthe Armitage’s fabulous wallpapers

Exhibition at Hogarth’s House
8 February to 27 April 2014, admission free

Marthe Armitage has designed and printed wallpapers since the 1960s. After studying painting at Chelsea School of Art in the 1940s, she married an architect and they brought up their children at Strand on the Green. The exhibition includes her first wallpaper, designed for her home and based on her drawings of angelica which grows wild beside the river there. The exhibition displays samples of most of her wallpapers along with some of her drawings.

At first Marthe printed her lino-cuts onto lining paper on the floor, until she acquired an old cast iron offset lithographic proofing press. Today she works with her daughter, Joanna Broadhurst, printing by hand to order. Marthe prefers muted colours as she thinks wallpapers should be in the background. “My inspiration has always been the mystery of pattern, which is as basic to sight as music is to hearing. The best place to see pattern is on a wall. Plants lend themselves so easily to repeat pattern and plant designs came first. Later, after looking at toile de jouy fabrics the thought came of drawing imaginary worlds “, says Marthe. “All my information comes from drawing and all my ideas and inspiration from looking at God’s work”.

Marthe Armitage’s work follows in a long tradition of hand-printing in Chiswick, running from Hogarth’s own work preparing his plates in his studio/workshop, through the Chiswick Press, established on Chiswick Mall in 1811, Sanderson’s Wallpapers from the 1870s and the Typographic Etching Company whose owner, Alfred Dawson, was the first to try and preserve Hogarth’s House in 1890.

The Trust has been delighted to support Hogarth’s House in putting on this first exhibition in the programme of events for the 250th commemoration. We contributed a great deal of practical help in putting up this exhibition and some funding from a generous grant from the John Paul Getty Jnr Trust.

Hogarth’s 250th: 1764-2014

Hogarth died on 25 October 1764, aged 66. The Trust will be working with Hogarth’s House to commemorate the artist’s life with activities and exhibitions there during this anniversary year. A special commemoration, with music and readings, will take place at St Nicholas Church, Chiswick (where Hogarth and his relatives are buried) on Saturday, 25 October 2014, marking Hogarth’s last day in Chiswick, 250 years ago.

Hogarth was working at his Chiswick house on 24 October, but the next day was too ill to work. He was taken to his London home in Leicester Fields, weak but said to be ‘remarkably chearful’. After supper, he retired to bed and had a vomiting attack. Mary Lewis, his wife’s cousin who lived with the family, was called to care for him but he died in her arms in the early hours of 26 October.

He had been re-working his copper plate of The Bench, first published in 1758. The version printed and published after his death, included additional text confirming that the row of heads at the upper edge was Hogarth’s last work.

Hogarth had made his will on 15 August 1764. One of his witnesses was Richard Loveday, a surgeon who lived near him in Chiswick at that time; the families were close and Jane Hogarth was godmother to one of Loveday’s daughters. But Hogarth had been ill several times in the previous few years and it is possible that Loveday was attending to his health as well as acting as a close friend.

The rather grand memorial tomb in Chiswick Churchyard carries verses by David Garrick and Samuel John-
son; it is also the burial place of Hogarth’s sister Anne, his wife Jane and her mother Dame Judith Thornhill.

The stonework was beautifully conserved a few years ago, though the carved decoration has long since lost its colours.

The Trust will announce details of the year’s events as soon as they are available.