Palladio catalogue v6

Palladio catalogue.indd 1 

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PALLADIO: THE ARCHITECTS’ WALLPAPER 

This booklet accompanies the display, 

Palladio: the Architects’ Wallpaper 

organised by the Museum of Domestic 

Design and Architecture (MoDA) at 

Middlesex University in September 2016. 

MoDA holds one of the country’s finest 

collections of mass market wallpapers. 

Often overlooked, wallpaper makes a 

significant contribution to design histories. 

Palladio was an ambitious series of artistdesigned 

wallpapers dating from 1955 

to 1971, reflecting both the optimism of 

post-war design and the tensions between 

industry, design reformers and architects 

in constructing the post-war interior. 

MoDA’s collection of Palladio wallpaper 

dates from 1955 to 1964 and is the most 

comprehensive collection of early Palladio 

ranges in a UK public institution. 

WPM advertisement featuring Peter Smithson’s Schema design 

in Architectural Review, November 1959. 


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From 1955 to 1964 the Palladio series was 

led by brothers Richard and Guy Busby of 

Lightbown Aspinall, a branch of the Wallpaper 

Manufacturers Limited (WPM). The Busbys 

provided over fifty artists and designers with the 

creative freedom to produce wallpaper designs 

and reinvented wallpaper as an exciting, fresh 

and credible component of the post-war interior. 

Palladio wallpaper was specifically designed 

for architects and public spaces by artists and 

designers including Terence Conran, Audrey Levy 

and Peter Smithson. It aimed to transform interior 

spaces, changing the perception of wallpaper from 

providing domestic background to creating public 

backdrops that framed social and public lives. 

Palladio designs were characterised by their 

large-scale pattern repeats and expanses of 

colour. The introduction of the silkscreen 

process to the wallpaper industry in the 

late 1940s was instrumental in this shift in 

design, allowing manufacturers to produce 

bigger and bolder mural-like prints. 

Above: Workers at Lightbown Aspinall hand screen-printing 

Romek Marber’s Structura from the Palladio Magnus series, 

around 1959. 

Right: Advertisement for WPM Architects’ Department, 

around 1956. 


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Architects undertaking post-war public building 

projects were the target market for Palladio. 

Although the 1950s witnessed a surge in pattern 

and colour within the interior, wallpaper took a 

recessive role in contrast to textiles, furnishings 

and lighting. Wallpaper continued to be a hard 

sell to architects and interior designers. 

Ultimately Palladio wallpapers were not a 

commercial success; however the designs in the 

range received critical acclaim receiving multiple 

Designs of the Year awards from the Council of 

Industrial Design. As artist and Palladio designer 

Humphrey Spender observed, the wallpapers 

‘enjoyed a reputation and prestige quite out 

of proportion to their commercial success’. 

We have selected eight wallpapers to feature 

in this booklet to demonstrate the breadth of 

designs. There are over one hundred Palladio 

wallpaper designs in MoDA’s collections 

and you are welcome to visit us in-person 

and online to explore them further. 


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Robert Nicholson (1920- 2004) 

Sicilian Lion 

1956 

PO2.18 

This bold design features a repeat lion motif that is 

nearly three feet high. It was available in a variety 

of striking colourways including gold and black. 

The lion, a symbol of British national identity, 

strength and authority made it a fitting choice 

for public buildings. It provided a civic welcome 

in the entrance spaces of the Miners’ Welfare 

Centre, Nottinghamshire and the Engineering 

and Allied Employers’ Federation offices, 

Birmingham. It was also used as a backdrop 

at the Colony Restaurant in Zimbabwe, before 

independence in 1980. 

Robert Nicholson studied at the Medway College of 

Art in Kent. Teaming up with his brother and fellow 

designer Roger Nicholson, the pair established 

Nicholson Brothers in 1945, specialising in graphic 

and industrial design. Together they worked on 

room sets for the Festival of Britain and exhibition 

and interior design for the Design Centre in 

London, the national showroom for good design. 

Left: Sicilian Lion installed in the Miner’s 

Welfare Centre, Nottinghamshire. (Courtesy of 

Architectural Press Archive / RIBA Collections). 


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Peter Shuttleworth 

Gala 

1957 

PO4.113 

This crisp geometric design was praised in 

Design magazine in 1957 as being, ‘…useful 

in correcting the balance of the range which 

might otherwise have seemed too heavily 

weighted with naturalistic subjects’. Gala was 

paired with Robert Nicholson’s Sicilian Lion in 

a retail store in Leicester in the late 1950s. 

Some of Shuttleworth’s wallpaper designs had 

featured in the Festival of Britain and he produced 

many geometric designs for the Palladio series. He 

was one of the few Palladio designers who worked 

in-house for Lightbown Aspinall from 1946 to 1981. 

WPM advertisement featuring Gala 

in Architectural Review, July 1957. 


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Walter Hoyle (1922-2000) 

Bardfield 

1958 

PO3.3 

The title of this design is mostly likely a reference 

to Great Bardfield in Essex, home to a community 

of artists, designers and illustrators including 

Edward Bawden from the mid-twentieth century. 

Bawden taught many of the Palladio designers, 

including Hoyle, at the Royal College of Art. 

Hoyle chose to install Bardfield in his own home. 

In the photograph (right) Hoyle, who was also a 

painter and printmaker, can be seen working in his 

studio next to his wife Denise, with the Bardfield 

wallpaper in the background. 

Hoyle taught printmaking at the Cambridge School 

of Art from 1964 until his retirement in 1985. 

Walter Hoyle in his Essex home with his wife Denise in 

around 1961, with the Bardfield design in the background. 

(Image courtesy of Denise Hoyle). 


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Walter Hoyle (1922-2000) 

Unicorns 

1958 

PO3.59 

This fun and brightly coloured design was probably 

intended to appeal to children and was used in the 

restroom of a school in Portsmouth. 

Hoyle’s heraldic unicorn has similarities to those 

created by Edward Bawden, particularly the 

unicorn for the royal coat of arms designed for 

the Observer newspaper (image right). The 

unicorn was a familiar post-war motif; the lion 

and unicorn were revived for the 1951 Festival 

of Britain as symbols of national identity. 

Edward Bawden, Coat of Arms, around 1962, originally 

produced for the Observer newspaper. (Courtesy of the Estate 

of Edward Bawden, photograph courtesy of Fry Art Gallery). 


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Audrey Levy (b.1928) 

Cluster 

1960 

PO4.99 

The design Cluster features a singular motif 

and was designed as a half-drop repeat. The 

image here shows Audrey Levy in her studio 

examining her designs; Cluster can be seen on 

the back wall and she is holding Treescape. 

Other designs for Palladio wallpapers, including 

Maze and Pebble can be seen on the table. 

Levy studied textile design at the Royal College 

of Art and set up a studio at her home in 1948 to 

work as a freelance designer for fashion prints. The 

Council of Industrial Design recommended Levy 

to Lightbown Aspinall. It was important to her 

to retain control of her designs until completion. 

Richard Busby was supportive of Levy and allowed 

her to compose the repeat and select colourways. 

Levy remembers visiting the factory to ensure the 

design was precisely what she had envisaged. 

Audrey Levy in her studio, Kew, London, 1958. (Courtesy of 

John Maltby / RIBA Collections). 


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Audrey Levy (b.1928) 

Treescape 

1958 

PO4.134 

The elongated and abstract tree trunks of this 

design required an expansive wall space for the 

striking pattern to be distinguished; it was used in 

the restaurant of the Euston Hotel, Morecambe. 

Audrey Levy was one of the most prolific 

contributors to the Palladio series and it was 

her wallpapers that first provided the range 

with the accolade of ‘good design’. Levy won 

two Design of the Year awards with Impasto 

in 1957 and Phantom Rose in 1958. 

Audrey Levy, Treescape, displayed with table by 

J W G Payne and table lamp by Genie Products. 

(Image reproduced from the Design 

Council Slide Collection at Manchester 

Metropolitan University Special Collection). 


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Roger Nicholson (1922-1986) 

Montacute 

1960 

PO4.112 

The title of the design, Montacute, suggests Roger 

Nicholson’s inspiration may have come from 

the façade of Montacute House, in Somerset, 

which features nine classical statues in arcaded 

niches. Although Palladio was intended for 

large-scale public buildings, the image right 

shows Montacute in a domestic setting and 

demonstrates that wallpaper was inextricably 

associated with the domestic interior. 

After training as a painter at the Royal College 

of Art in the 1940s, Nicholson went on to teach 

illustration and graphic art at Central Saint Martins 

from 1945 and became Professor of Textiles at the 

RCA in 1958. Nicholson worked closely with Richard 

and Guy Busby of Lightbown Aspinall to select 

designers for the Palladio ranges from 1955 to 1964. 

Scheme for a living room featuring Nicholson’s Montacute 

design, 1960s. 


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Peter Smithson (1923–2003) 

Schema 

1960 

SC65 

In 1960 Lightbown Aspinall launched Palladio 

Magnus, a series of twelve designs that were 

even larger in scale than the previous Palladio 

series. The range focused on abstract and 

geometric patterns with an absence of the pictorial 

designs which had featured heavily in Palladio. 

Peter Smithson is the only architect known to have 

designed wallpaper for the Palladio series. There 

are similarities between Smithson’s wallpaper 

design and his architectural drawings, for example 

this pencil sketch plan of municipal buildings 

(right), produced a few years prior to Schema. 

Smithson and his wife and architectural partner, 

Alison, set up their practice together in 1950. As 

members of the Independent Group, their interests 

in the everyday, ephemeral and the image made 

wallpaper a relevant medium for them to explore. 

Peter Smithson, pencil sketch of municipal buildings, 

1957. (Courtesy of the Frances Loeb Library, Harvard 

University Graduate School of Design). 


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The End of a Bold and Uncompromising Standard 

‘My company attempts to be in the lead…but the 

cost of this distinction can be considerable. In 

one extreme situation the finances of a particular 

wallpaper mill swung from substantial profit 

to a crippling loss due to a set of designs which 

won a number of awards but which were not 

commercially successful’. Colin King, Managing 

Director of Wallpaper Manufacturers Ltd, 1973. 

In 1965 the Wallpaper Manufacturers Ltd, which 

included Lightbown Aspinall were taken over 

by Reed International. However the Palladio 

series was continued under new management 

of sales-minded designer Eddie Pond and was 

manufactured by Sandersons. Pond was the 

artistic director of five Palladio ranges from 

1966 to 1971, when it ceased production. Roger 

Nicholson and the Busby brothers were no 

longer involved in the selection of designers. 

Palladio under Lightbown Aspinall had not been 

a commercial success and Pond was charged 

with reversing this trend. A central design 

studio consisting of 15-20 designers was bought 

under Pond’s management. Pond sought to 

limit fees paid to freelance designers, combine 

machine and screen printing of designs and 

make Palladio appeal to a domestic market 

– all with the aim of increasing revenue. 

Designers who had created wallpapers for 

the earlier Palladio ranges, including Audrey 

Levy and Cliff Holden found themselves 

clashing with Pond’s new approach. 

For Holden, Palladio never aimed to meet the 

demands of a domestic audience and was intended 

instead to be a ‘shop window, which raised 

standards all round and which increased the sales 

of the so-called “bread and butter” ranges’. 

In 1955 Lightbown Aspinall had embarked on a bold 

venture with Palladio wallpapers. By 1971, when 

production ceased, the designers it employed had 

produced some of the most exciting and iconic 

wallpaper designs of the mid-century. Although not 

commercially successful, Palladio demonstrates the 

forward-thinking approach to design of mainstream 

manufacturers, who were so often accused by 

their critics of avoiding risk and experimentation. 


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MoDA would like to thank AIM (the Association of 

Independent Museums) for generously supporting 

the conservation of Palladio wallpapers in our 

collection with the award of an AIM Conservation 

Grant supported by The Pilgrim Trust. 

Research: Sim Panaser and Sophie Rycroft 

Booklet text: Sim Panaser 

Booklet design: Sam Smith 

Find out more about MoDA collections and how 

to make an appointment to view the collection 

on MoDA’s website www.moda.mdx.ac.uk 

The Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture 

(MoDA) is part of Middlesex University. MoDA’s 

collections are available Online, On Tour and On 

Request. The collections include wallpapers, 

textiles, designs, books, catalogues and magazines 

from the late nineteenth to the mid twentieth 

century. They are a great resource if you are 

interested in the history of interiors, or if you are 

looking for visual inspiration for creative projects. 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be 

reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted 

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, 

photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written 

permission of the copyright holder for which application 

should be addressed in the first instance to the publishers. No 

liability shall be attached to the author, the copyright holder 

or the publishers for loss or damage of any nature suffered as 

a result of reliance on the reproduction of any of the contents 

of this publication or any errors or omissions in its contents. 


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Palladio catalogue v6

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