The Muse
How did a 70-something-year-old Englishwoman wearing a stained printer’s apron and sensible shoes earn herself a full-page portrait in the current issue of New York Spaces magazine?
Artist/Designer/Artisan Marthe Armitage. Photograph by Andrew Montgomery; BBC Syndicate/Gardens Illustrated
Easy: Marthe Armitage is a creative genius—and not just in her P.R. agent’s mind. She doesn’t even have a rep, unless you count The Art Workers Guild, the century-old British society dedicated to, as their web site explains, “authenticity (irrespective of political and stylistic ideology) in a world increasingly uncertain about what is real.”
Trust us: Marthe Armitage is the real deal.
Oakleaf. Photograph by Andrew Montgomery; BBC Syndicate/Gardens Illustrated
Cobweb. Courtesy Hamilton Weston Wallpapers & Design
Two of her hand-printed wallpapers, Oak Leaf and Cobweb, are already in the wallcoverings collection of the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum here in New York, right beside designs by the likes of William Morris and Andy Warhol.
Marthe, who received her early training at the Chelsea School of Art, stumbled on her chosen medium by chance, reports writer Sorrel Everton. As Marthe puts it: “The house we moved to needed embellishing, but we couldn’t afford much, so I made some wallpaper to cover up some very bad walls. I stuck it up and one or two people said ‘That’s nice’ and so it grew.” As simple as that.
The artist has been making wallpaper ever since. 
She cuts her own lino blocks. Photograph by Andrew Montgomery; BBC Syndicate/Gardens Illustrated
She mixes her own oil-based inks. Photograph by Andrew Montgomery; BBC Syndicate/Gardens Illustrated
She rolls color onto the blocks by hand. Photograph by Andrew Montgomery; BBC Syndicate/Gardens Illustrated
And she presses the inked blocks to paper by hand, using a 100-year-old offset lithographic press she purchased 40 years ago. Photograph by Andrew Montgomery; BBC Syndicate/Gardens Illustrated
The results are extraordinary—reminiscent of hand-inked papers centuries old, and yet completely at home in a contemporary interior. 
Imagine Chestnut used on a single feature wall, creating a focal point in a room where no fireplace, view, or other artwork exists to distract attention from its intricately drawn design. Courtesy Hamilton Weston Wallpaper & Design
Bamboo, in duck-egg blue, could turn a tiny powder room into a mini spa. Courtesy Hamilton Weston Wallpaper & Design
How about Hop Garden for the breakfast area? Courtesy Hamilton Weston Wallpaper & Design
Or Angelica, in aqua and olive, for a guest room/secret garden? Courtesy Hamilton Weston Wallpaper & Design
Hamilton Weston Wallpaper & Design, in Marthe’s native England, has made her papers available internationally via the internet for several years without a hitch. “The majority of clients who have ordered are artistic themselves—painters, actors, designers, etc.,” says company principal Robert Weston. “A client may initially email us, requesting a small sample of the design for scale, or request small snips of existing colors or just post a color chip for us to work from and produce a pre-production striking for approval.” The important thing to note, he adds, is that the papers are the work of an artist: They are not mass-produced and sitting in a warehouse somewhere ready to ship next-day air. They are made to order, and printed only on white or gold papers, and their horizontal block lines are inherent in the hand-printing process. You can buy them by the roll, or as panels suitable for framing (they are, after all, works of art).
To learn more about the inspiring work of Marthe Armitage, see the story by photographer Andrew Montgomery and writer Sorrel Everton in the March 2010 issue of New York Spaces.
Their subject is a woman of substance. We think you’ll like her style.
—Marjorie E. Gage, Executive Editor
Photographs by Andrew Montgomery; BBC Syndicate/Gardens Illustrated
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