Voysey wallpapers and fabrics

As the saying goes, one thing leads to another. Just shy of twenty-five years ago when David E. Berman, the founder of Trustworth Studios in Plymouth, Massachusetts, began making reproductions of furniture designed by Charles Francis Annesley Voysey, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and other British designers working around the turn of the twentieth century, he thought this would be his life's work. His clients were happy with his furniture but felt his pieces would look even more at home in interiors appointed with period accessories. Many of these clients called on Berman for advice, since he had acquired considerable expertise in arts and crafts furnishings. However, Berman was disappointed by the narrow range of choices available in wallpapers, wallpaper borders, and fabrics, so in 2000 he began to produce wallpapers--a pursuit he soon found far more rewarding than furniture making.

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Voysey began creating wallpaper patterns in 1883, and by the late 1880s he was esteemed for his well-conceived and innovative designs for both wallpapers and textiles. These designs became mainstays of his career, and in 1930 he was still creating patterns for both. Many of his designs take their cue from the natural world (particularly plants and birds)--a source of inspiration for many designers of the period. Voysey excelled at distilling imagery into bold, large-scale patterns with distinctive outlines, although after 1900 he reduced the scale of his designs.

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Fortunately, when he was making furniture in the early 1980s, Berman was also collecting textiles and wallpaper fragments designed by Voysey. He found some examples in the rooms of his clients' arts and crafts style houses, and he purchased others whenever and wherever he found them. As his reputation grew he was offered examples by manufacturers and antiques dealers here and abroad. One mill in England that had commissioned designs from Voysey granted Berman access to more than eighty patterns. Today Berman re-creates a wide selection of these designs for wallpaper using methods ranging from silk-screening to digital technology.

As the wallpaper business grew, Berman became interested in reproducing Voysey fabrics, and recently he set up a sister company, Wellspring Textiles, in Greenwich, Connecticut. Berman and his partner in this venture, Sarah Wildasins, offer a wide range of printed cottons and are developing a line of linens with Voysey designs.

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Trustworth Studios may be contacted by telephone at 508-746-1847 or through their Web site (www.trustworth.com), and Wellspring Textiles may be contacted by telephone at 203-869-4898 or through their Web site (www.wellspringtextiles.com).

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COPYRIGHT 2006 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning