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Monday 14 December 2020
From a distance, the American decorator Sheila Bridges’ ‘Harlem Toile de Jouy’ looks like any other historic toile, with its colourful ground, delicate pastoral vignettes and 18th-century costume. Close up, though, it becomes clear that the design is something special. A pattern that embraces the codes of this traditional French design, first popularised in the late 18th-century, but whose figures – at joyful leisure dancing, picnicking and playing double dutch – are African American.
‘As an African American living in Harlem, I have always been intrigued and inspired by the historical narrative of the decorative arts, especially traditional French toile with its pastoral motifs from the late 1700s,’ Sheila says. ‘I’m entertained by the stories these patterns tell and the questions they sometimes raise. But after searching for many years for the perfect toile for my own home, I decided that it quite simply didn’t exist.’