80s Art

In the 80s, you hung prints showing:

blue skies, clouds and checkerboard floors

sunlit terraces without people but with highball glasses with straws, deckchairs or directors’ chairs, white cane furniture, ombré shadows, umbrellas furled and unfurled. Throw in a straw hat with a ribbon, a pavilion and a swimming pool

French windows opening onto terraces with white furniture and a cocktail glass with an umbrella, and a distant prospect of apricot and grey ombré mist (John Sovjani).

poolside scenes, beach umbrellas and empty deck chairs, turquoise sea, ultramarine sky, the edge of a pool, part of a deck chair, part of a garden chair with diagonal stripes

conservatory interior with palms and white ironwork

poppies and wheat, irises and lilies, daffodils, bird of paradise flowers

Venetian blinds and their shadows

neon slogans, especially in pink

cocktails splashing as a cherry is dropped in, with detailed reflections on the drops, splashes etc (All done by hand.)

Victorian greenhouses, ombré sunsets, unicorns, airbrushing, reflections, humorous sheep, Raybans, rainbows

woman with saucer hat tilted over eyes, lipstick mouth, black gloves, lots of diagonal crayon strokes (Ferraro)

pastel gardens with white lattice arches for roses, lattices for creepers, white trellis, and pergolas with lots of mauve flowers: wistaria, lilacs and lupins. Especially lilacs.

MORE WALL ART
Western-style Japanese paintings of misty trees (someone called them “watery Zen landscapes”)

large framed sepia photographs of country scenes or small girls in white pinafores

pierrot masks, Escher and Arcimboldo prints

copper fish moulds in your kitchen for making mousses and terrines

Cafés had a lot of b/w photos of 40s film stars in narrow frames, and reproductions of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks

20s Vogue and Harper’s covers

Art by: Paul Iribe, Patrick Nagel, John Kiraly, Georgia O’Keeffe, B.B. La Femme, Scott Nellis, Razzia, Walt Curlee, David Allgood (daffodils), Antonio Lopez, Manuel Nunez, Gordon Beningfield

COLLECTIBLES
Cream art deco teapots in the shape of racing cars, 18th century architectural plans, old advertising, Clarice Cliff, Goss china, china animals and cottages, amusing teapots in the shape of an Aga with a teapot on it, Lilliput Lane miniature cottages and buildings, pottery hedgehogs. “Collectable” china thimbles and commemorative plates advertised on the back pages of colour supplements. Huge baroque carved-wood barometers and wall clocks.

80s decor