‘Mermaid’

Edward Bawden's 'Mermaid' wallpaper uses classical Greek motifs that were familiar as decorative subject matter in the 1920s and 1930s. Yet Bawden presents the motifs in a particularly English way, with plump mermaids, spouting whales and ribbon-like seaweed. Perhaps Bawden intended for this wallpaper to cover the walls in the changing rooms of the ubiquitous 1930s Lido. Or, more likely, a suburban bathroom. The colours used in this design, black and eau de nil green - literally 'water of the Nile'- were very popular in the 1930s. New houses in the suburbs came with indoor plumbing and bathrooms as standard, and they would have had been fitted with ceramic tiles or Vitrolite panels in these two colours.