The original William Morris wallpapers were printed by hand using pear wood blocks and this method of production continues today but on a very small scale as it is, of course, extremely expensive to do. At Charleston, though, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant did not have ambitions to go into commercial production, but used stencils to create lively, patterned, one-off wallpaper designs to decorate the walls of their rooms (all the designs can be seen in the Charleston collection). 

We have wallpaper on the Post this week, beginning with a superlative design by William Morris (1834-1896), the master of the repeat pattern. The William Morris Gallery, which is housed in what was once Morris' family home in Walthamstow, has a new exhibition from 5th April which brings together a huge range of objects decorated with his enormously popular patterns. But for many, it is still his textiles and wallpapers that display his genius best. This is 'Pimpernel', designed in 1876.

Helen Sutherland is given a suitably important role in The Pitmen Painters (2007), the hugely successful play by Lee Hall (who also wrote Billy Elliot). Hall was inspired by William Feaver's 1988 book which makes clear the significance of her patronage and generosity without strings or condescension. Unlike art world figures such as Kenneth Clark, Helen Sutherland recognised that the group was producing an outstanding and unique record of miners' lives and of pit villages and towns such as Ashington. This is a scene from one of the many productions of the play. 

This week of Posts about Helen Sutherland was prompted by seeing several paintings by members of the Ashington Group, often known as 'the Pitmen Painters', in the current (free) exhibition Lives Less Ordinary at Two Temple Place. The group, the majority of whom were mine workers, began painting in 1934 as part of a WEA art appreciation course. Ashington is not far from Rock Hall, and Helen Sutherland was immensely supportive of the men, bought their paintings, showed them her collection, and paid for them all to make a trip to London to visit galleries. This is Pigeon Crees (c1938, Woodhorn Museum) by Jimmy Floyd (1898-1974 74). 

Helen Sutherland collected art (and artists) according to her own tastes and nobody else's, something which, according to her friend Edward Hodgkin, prompted comments about the 'folly of letting an unmarried woman loose with a lot of money'. She met Winifred and Ben Nicholson in 1925 and eventually owned forty-seven works by Ben at a time when, as Hodgkin said, it required 'courage as well as taste' to collect pieces by 'young artists who were known to a few and admired by even fewer'. This is 1932 (crowned head: the queen) by Ben Nicholson which is in Abbot Hall, gifted by Helen Sutherland in 1965.

Helen Sutherland kept a record of the wine and plants she bought, but not of the paintings in her collection which was broken up after her death. As a result, it is difficult to know exactly what she owned. One of the artists she helped (whose work she did buy) was David Jones (1895-1974), also a modernist poet admired by WH Auden and TS Eliot. This is The Chapel in the Park 1932, Tate) with a view from the room that Helen Sutherland gave him, one of his delicate , ethereal and complex watercolours. More examples of this overlooked artist's work can be seen in Kettle's Yard.

This week on the Post, we have Helen Sutherland (1881-1965) who has been described variously as an 'isolated, austere, and fastidious heiress' and a 'patron, socialite, and connoisseur'. She was all of these, and is chiefly remembered for using her wealth to support many emerging, often Modernist, artists and writers. During the 1930s she leased Rock Hall near Alnwick in Northumberland as a place for them to gather and stay. While the art establishment was reluctant to engage with modern art and its creators, Sutherland bought art no one else was buying and built an important collection.