There is one other image of this object. See our image rights statement.

Object Timeline

-0001	We photographed this object.
1927	Work on this object began.
1996	We acquired this object.
2001	We exhibited this object.
2015	This was an Object of the Day.
2018	We photographed this object.
2024	You found it!

Sidewall, Tree & Cow

This is a sidewall. It was designed by Edward Bawden and produced by The Curwen Press. It is dated 1927 and we acquired it in 1996. Its medium is lithograph from linocut. It is a part of the Wallcoverings department.

Edward Bawden was a watercolorist, book illustrator, mural painter, and designer. In 1925, Bawden saw William Morris’s wallpaper, Daisy, in an exhibition and was inspired to design his first wallpaper. Harold Curwen, of the Curwen Press, saw some of these early designs and wanted to transfer the pieces to his lithographic press so they could be reproduced and sold. Bawden designed 14 wallpapers between 1926 and 1933 for the Curwen Press. These papers are now quite rare.

This object was featured in our Object of the Week series in a post titled Bawden's Pastoral View.

It is credited Museum purchase from Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program and Pauline C. Noyes Funds.

Roughly square portion cut from larger fabric. The dark green background is densely populated by brightly colored farm animals, human figures and flowers illustrated in a happy, playful, flat manner reminscent of folkart. The general impression is like an appliqued quilt where the elements have been cut from different print fabrics and sewn onto the background. The motifs are contained in a diamond shape, which repeats in all directions. The central figures are a blond 'farmer' in light blue overalls, red shirt and pink boots carrying a lamb and the 'farmers wife' in a long pink dress with a green top, hair covered in pink, grey boots, carrying a yellow flowering plant and a green bucket. Floating around them clockwise in a circular motion, a green cow with white face and pink horns, a white goose, a red rooster with green wings and whte tail feathers,a pink goat with yellow ears and green hooves, a green horse with a pink mane, a yellow cat, a pale blue pig with grey ears and three piglets (2 grey, 1 blue). A second ring of creatures float around the first including: a green partridge, a pink rooster, a green hen with red wings, a female figure in a short red dress, pink shoes and what looks like a chef's hat carrying a long necked blue bird, a white duck, a yellow dog, a green rabit, a pink bird with long tail feathers, and two dogs (1 pink, 1 pale grey) that look like a howling coyote. Interwoven between these elements are a variety of fantasy flowers and stylized leaf shapes. Despite the busyness of the design and humourous, unexpected color choices, the design is unified by one feature common to all the elements - each contains some kind of tiny overall pattern like polka dots, flowers, or stars, so that all seem related. The name of the pattern 'Calico Cow' gives an idea of the quilt material referred to earlier.

Textile, Calico Cow, 1952
cotton.
American Textile History Museum Collection, gift of Michele Palmer.
2017-24-7

Its dimensions are

Overall: 55.5 x 55.5cm (21 7/8 x 21 7/8in.)

Cite this object as

Sidewall, Tree & Cow; Designed by Edward Bawden (English, 1903 – 1989); Produced by The Curwen Press (United Kingdom); England; lithograph from linocut; Overall: 55.5 x 55.5cm (21 7/8 x 21 7/8in.); Museum purchase from Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program and Pauline C. Noyes Funds; 1996-32-2

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Rooms with a View: Landscape & Wallpaper.

Short URL http://cprhw.tt/o/2DB3x/
Accession Number 1996-32-2
Object ID 18653527