Willow (Green on Cream)
1874 · Block-printed wallpaper on paper · Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
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About this work
- Artist
- William Morris (1834–1896)
- Year
- 1874
- Medium
- Block-printed wallpaper on paper
- Original size
- 69.5 × 58.5 cm
- Collection
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
- Movement
- Arts and Crafts
Bright green willow leaves on fine stems scatter over a cream ground with no obvious direction, the colourway closest to how most people picture Morris's willow. William Morris designed Willow in 1874. The Cooper Hewitt describes the leaves as set in a seemingly random pattern, which was exactly his aim: in his 1881 lecture Some Hints on Pattern Designing he urged designers to mask a pattern's construction so that people cannot count its repeats. Thirteen years later he returned to the subject in the larger, more naturalistic Willow Bough. The V&A notes that Morris owned a copy of Gerard's Herball, which illustrates a willow branch. This sheet was printed by Jeffrey & Co. and entered the Cooper Hewitt in 1935.
This print fills the sheet edge to edge with the pattern, cropped from a high-resolution museum scan of the original, so it reads like a panel of the wallpaper or fabric. The exhibition poster shows the whole sample. The design is in the public domain.
Where it works
Fresh green leaves on cream feel light and restful in a bedroom, bathroom or small hallway. Pair it with Willow Bough to show the design's two versions at 16×24 in natural wood.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Arts and Crafts pattern
- Era
- 19th century (1874)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Mood
- decorative, classic
- Rooms
- bedroom, bathroom, hallway or entryway
Size. We'd hang this one at 16×24. Prints at 12×18, 16×24 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway.
Framing. Printed edge to edge: a slim black or natural wood frame right to the pattern, or let the canvas wrap do the framing. Also available gallery-wrapped on canvas, ready to hang with no frame.
Pairing. Hangs alone or as a matched pair; three or more prints are 10% off.
