Strawberry Tree is an archive block print brought back as a surface print, and the change of process is audible in the result. Surface printing lays colour thickly and slightly unevenly, so the wall keeps the density and the small imperfections of the original blocks rather than the flatness of a modern reproduction. Surface printing is slower and costlier than modern methods, and it is used here because nothing else reproduces the weight of hand-blocked colour.
The drawing sits between two traditions. Its structure, a repeating stylised tree with leaves and fruit arranged formally rather than naturalistically, belongs to the Arts and Crafts vocabulary, but it is handled with more colour and less piety than that movement usually allowed. Each palette works three colours over a ground, which gives the foliage depth without resorting to shading. The fruit is drawn small in relation to the tree, which keeps the pattern botanical rather than decorative.
A 53 cm repeat on a half-drop match keeps the trees staggered so they do not form columns, and the short repeat means little waste and easy setting out around openings. Rooms with older bones suit it, a cottage bedroom, a panelled study, a hall in a period house, and it sits particularly well with unpolished oak, rush matting and plain wool.
