The process of closing a museum is similar to that of emptying a parent’s house after their death. Certain once-cherished objects might be claimed by relatives or given to friends, while the remainder, which had status due to their relationship to the whole, become diminished in status once unmoored from the context which gave them meaning.
The closure of the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture (MoDA), Middlesex University, in 2024 meant the dispersal of its collections of wallpaper, designs, and textiles, to other institutions. New homes were found for most of the important things, although the process also raised questions about what we mean by “important”. One of the strengths of MoDA’s wallpaper collection had been the high proportion of so-called “ordinary” wallpapers, from the cheaper end of the market. It was not always easy to persuade other institutions to accept these (often plain, or visually unappealing) papers into their collections.
The Silver Studio Collection
At the museum’s core was the Silver Studio Collection.[1] This included wallpaper albums and loose samples that had been accumulated by the designers who worked for the Studio to use as visual reference. Most of these dated from the 1900s to the 1950s, with companies from the cheaper end of the market such as John Line, Heffer Scott and Lightbown Aspinall well represented.
Fig 1: A portion of wallpaper frieze depicting trees and fields with a flock of birds in flight; Designed by Rex Silver; Produced by John Line & Sons Ltd; England; ca. 1905. V&A Museum CIRC.590-1967
When the Silver Studio closed as a business, its contents became part of Hornsey College of Art (subsequently absorbed into Middlesex Polytechnic, then Middlesex University) in the late 1960s, and became known as the Silver Studio Collection.
By the 1980s the Keeper, Mark Turner, was involved in developing a new approach to wallpaper history, alongside organisations such as the Wallpaper History Society. Turner emphasised the popular consumption of wallpaper rather than looking at it as an elite or luxury product. He helped to move the focus away from individual named designers, towards un-named designers working for companies who produced wallpaper for the masses.
Fig 2. A Popular Art, published by Middlesex Polytechnic, 1990.Last few copies available from the WHS online shop:
Turner’s exhibition, A Popular Art, and the publication that accompanied it, were amongst the first to take mass-market wallpapers of the twentieth century seriously. This approach was an attempt to address the biases within existing wallpaper collections such as the V&A and the Whitworth which, as Christine Woods later pointed out, were heavily skewed towards craft-made papers by named designers.[1]
Turner did however accept several of the lavishly screen-printed Palladio albums by Lightbown Aspinall into the collection, along with examples of papers by Edward Bawden, John Aldridge and others.
Fig 3. 'Quatrefoil' wallpaper, with a pattern of quatrefoils in black, white and grey, incorporating vertical stripes; Colour print from wood blocks on paper. Designed by Edward Bawden, c 1950. V&A Museum E.890-1979
From the early 2000s the museum continued to see wallpaper as both design history and social history. It frequently acquired wallpapers that visitors had used to decorate their own homes and gave priority to donations that were accompanied by contextual information, such as photographs of the rooms in which they had been used. But wallpaper also continued to be valued for visual inspiration: students, researchers and other visitors frequently enjoyed browsing the collections for ideas about colour, choice of motifs, and printing techniques.
Fig 4. ‘Bardfield’ wallpaper by Walter Hoyle, from the Palladio range by Lightbown Aspinall, V&A Museum E.80-2014
What has happened to the collections now?
The Silver Studio Collection will be transferred to new ownership in its entirety, including wallpapers, designs, textiles, katagami stencils, business records and so on. At the time of writing discussions were still ongoing, and the Silver Studio Collection remains in the possession of Middlesex University. (Please contact David Clover d.clover@mdx.ac.uk with all enquiries).
The other wallpapers, acquired separately from the Silver Studio Collection, were divided between various institutions who were willing to take specific items. The Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester accepted a large number of items but were of course keen not to duplicate existing collections. Other wallpapers were transferred to Sanderson design archive and Warners Textile Archive. The V&A decided against taking anything at all for reasons of duplication and lack of space. Some of the associated trade catalogues and ephemeral material relating to the wallpaper industry went to Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collections, and another significant batch to Buckinghamshire University.
Rather like the objects that make up a parent’s home, and which must be dispersed on their death, MoDA’s collections came together in particular circumstances and fulfilled a particular function. Now some of those items have found new lives elsewhere. We hope that they will continue to make a positive contribution to inspiration, learning and enjoyment in their new institutions, as they did at MoDA for so many years.
A note on images: The closure of MoDA also meant the closure of the museum’s website and the dispersal of digital images. Figures 1,3 & 4 here are of similar wallpapers from the V&A’s collections and are provided for illustrative purposes only.
[1] Hoskins, L. and Hendon, Z. 2008. Silver Studio designated collection. Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, Middlesex University. https://repository.mdx.ac.uk/item/81y36
[2] Woods, Christine, “An Object Lesson to a Philistine Age': The Wall Paper Manufacturers' Museum and the Formation of the National Collections”, Journal of Design History, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1999), pp. 159-171
Dr Zoe Hendon