The Silver Studio was a commercial design practice, based in West London and founded by Arthur Silver in 1880. Silver was a professional designer and the company enjoyed commercial success for a long period, with more than 20,000 schemes for items such as furnishing fabrics, wallpapers and home accessories.
The Studio employed a varying number of in-house and freelance designers throughout its long history, producing designs for wallpapers and textiles which it sold to manufacturers and retailers across Britain and abroad. Key to the success of the Studio was their responsiveness to the fashions and tastes of the moment, designing in all the major styles such as the flat stylised Art Nouveau of the late nineteenth century, as well as the popular traditional and historical patterns. In the 1870's and 80s, for example, Britain experienced a craze for all things Japanese. The Silver Studio played a key role in the interpretation of Japanese ideas for the mass market incorporating Japanese motifs and methods into wallpaper and textile patterns for British consumers.
Above Left: A design for a wallpaper by Arthur Silver around 1885 incorporating peacock feathers and Japanese style roundels.
Above Right: A design that incorporates Japanese Mon (heraldic crests). The Silver Studio owned three books of Mon, published in Japan in the late 19th century, which they used as sources of design ideas.
The Silver Studio's designers - both male and female - worked anonymously for the company. The women represented the first generation of female designers to work directly with industry for large-scale printed textile production. Their careers helped pave the way for greater female influence in the design industry. Between 1910 and 1940, thanks largely to the Studio's female designers the company established a reputation for producing designs for dress prints alongside its existing work for furnishing fabrics. The hand drawn and painted textiles map the floral trends for printed cottons, silks, chiffons and rayon which were the fashion fabrics of inter-war Britain.
Above Left: Design for a dress print by Madelaine Lawrence (1932)
Above Right: Flower study by Miss Koelher (1940)
In 1960 when the Studio closed its doors, the contents were given to the Hornsey College of Art and the collection contains over 40,000 original designs on paper, 5,000 wallpaper samples and 5,000 textiles samples.
Some of the Silver Studio's designs have been printed as patterned papers ready to use for wrapping, bookbinding, paper crafting or lining a drawer.
Header Image: Design for a dress silk by Mrs McPherson, 1928 The stylised flowers and expressionistic mark-making of this pattern are drawn in the spirit of the French couturier and artist-decorator Paul Poiret's Atelier Martine.
