Japanese Design

The majority of MoDA's collections relate to the design and decoration of so-called 'ordinary' British homes. So it might seem strange that we also have material that originates from Japan. But Arthur Silver (1853-96), founder of the Silver Studio, had an avid interest in Japanese art and design, and the Silver Studio Collection includes many Japanese things that belonged to him.

Arthur Silver had around 400 Japanese katagami stencils that he used as design inspiration. He collaborated with Alexander Rottmann in a business venture aimed at producing stencilled wallcoverings made from grasspaper, or kudzu, a special type of Japanese fibre. And he also acquired various photographic and other visual materials to inspire his designs for wallpapers and textiles.

The Silver Studio’s Japanese material is a rich source of ongoing research and collaboration between ourselves and researchers elsewhere in Britain and Japan.

collection of katagami stencils

Japanese Stencils (katagami)

Katagami are intricate paper stencils made for printing patterns on to kimono cloth using a resist method

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Japanese Grasspapers (kudzu)

Japanese Grasspapers (kudzu)

Not much was known in the West about this material, which is a kind of cross-between a paper and a woven textile. We've developed our knowledge of the Silver Studio's grasspaper stencilled wallcoverings gradually over many years.

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Japanese Photographs and Visual Inspiration

Japanese Photographs and Visual Inspiration

The Silver Studio collected many examples of Japanese photographs and other kinds of visual inspiration to use as part of their design practice.

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