Understanding Wallpaper Seminar

  • 7 July 2020
  • 13:00 - 17:00
  • Full Fee - £45 pp; Students - £18 pp

    IT requirements: Please note that this is an online course and will be held via a webinar platform called CrowdCast. You will be sent instructions on how to join the session when you book. To participate, all you need is an internet connection, and a laptop, computer or phone with the ability to play video and audio. On android mobiles/tablets, sessions can be accessed via either Chrome for Android or Firefox for Android. Apple mobile/tablet users will need to download the CrowdCast app.


    If you'd like to test your internet speed meets requirements to stream live before booking, please use this page on the CrowdCast website.


    Accessibility: please contact the SPAB before booking to discuss any special access requirements.

Join the William Morris Gallery and SPAB for this online afternoon seminar focusing on historic wallpapers, coinciding with the gallery’s exhibition The Yellow Wallpaper - a series of portraits by American artist Kehinde Wiley, which frame contemporary London women in settings inspired by iconic Morris floral designs.

Combining a concise history of wallpaper and examination of historic examples, their curation and conservation, with a curator’s introduction to the WMG’s current exhibition, this event will appeal both to general interest and professional audiences seeking to explore technical and social aspects of wallpaper as decoration.

Expert speaker, conservator Phillipa McDonnell of Lincoln Conservation, will introduce the history of wallpapers as decoration, outlining their production, use and conservation. Participants will then have an opportunity to view historic examples from the William Morris Gallery’s collection. Curator Roisin Inglesby will also introduce the current exhibition of striking portraits by Kehinde Wiley. These feature women the painter met in Dalston depicted against his signature floral backdrops, inspired by the wallpaper and textile designs of William and May Morris, and offer a visual response to American novelist Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s acclaimed semi-autobiographical and proto-feminist text The Yellow Wallpaper (1892).  

This is an introductory / intermediate level half-day online seminar, suitable for building owners, students, professionals / CPD and general interest.  Certificates of attendance will be available on request.