Bauhaus inspired Christmas cards

I finally made it along to the Tim Walker exhibition at Somerset House last week. 

The exhibition, which is being supported by Mulberry (Walker has shot their campaigns for the past four seasons), accompanies the launch of his latest book Storyteller. It’s been hugely popular, but now is a great time to go as it’s nearing the end of its run so the crowds have thinned out a bit. When I visited there was plenty of opportunity to really linger over the images and experience them up close.

Tim Walker’s work is renowned for its strong underlying narrative, and it’s his use of props that is frequently the key to this. Often surreal and giant sized, these are objects that play around with our sense of scale. Alice in Wonderland is the literary reference that perhaps springs most readily to mind.

Stepping into the East wing gallery at Somerset House you could indeed be forgiven for thinking that you have fallen down a rabbit hole into another world. In a sense you have, for you find yourself in the world of Tim Walker’s fabulously creative imagination – a world of dark dreamlike fairytales where beauty is juxtaposed with English eccentricity and haute couture.

 “Black has always been my favourite colour – or absence of colour,” says Stephen Crafti. The Melbourne based journalist and author of the newly published book Designing with Black describes himself as having always been drawn to black houses, irrespective of the materials they are constructed from – whether they are zinc, timber or simply painted.