These stunning plates are from Colour Schemes for the Modern Home by Derek Patmore. Modern, in this instance meaning 1934. I suppose there is an image of the interiors of the 30s as full of stodgy brown furniture and brown, and more brown... These images give the lie to that, full of bright pastel colours and light, airy designs. It is true that a lot of the furniture where there is exposed wood uses a dark brown wood and maybe our image of 30s interior design is influenced by the fact that furniture survives more commonly than wall coverings, rugs, upholstery or soft furnishings.
Some of these rooms are by significant names. The photo above, for instance, is by Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell and it was shown at the galleries of Messrs. Alex Reid and Lefervre Ltd. We are very familiar with the amazing rooms they created together, to live in, at Charleston in Sussex, and clearly a gallery is not a department store, but it is news to me at least that their idiosyncratic sense of interior design was shown in a commercial setting at all. The photo directly below is of a room by Eric Ravilious, for Sir Geoffrey Fry's flat in Portman Square: the most noticeable Ravilious element, of course, being the paintings of people playing tennis in the wall panels.
Whether the designer is famous or not, these rooms and room give a very different picture of life in the 30s in the UK than is often suggested.
