Watercolour, Design for a library in a house in Lower Belgrave Street, London; Nicholas Haslam, 1985

Design for a library, a cluttered interior, filled with assorted sofas, chairs, occasional tables and lamps. Books and pictures hung closely together on far right wall. A cartouche at left with inscription. Signature at bottom left.

Nicholas Haslam is one of Britain's most fashionable interior decorators. Starting as a modernist in America in the 1960s he had, by the 1980s, acquired a reputation as one of the leading exponents of the 'English Country House' look in interior decoration. This artfully casual style seeks to recreate the cluttered look of interiors filled with a wide range of furniture and objects acquired by inheritance, all tied together by a lavish use of patterned textiles. Having emerged as an exclusive fashion in the 1950s, it was in the 1980s taken up by high street furnishing companies such as Laura Ashley, whose international marketing helped to establish it around the world as the essence of British design.
[Stephen Astley, 'British Design at Home', p.163]

E.17-1986