The National Gallery of Australia says of Cressida Campbell's exquisitely detailed work that it combines "keen observation with a delicacy of line...and captures the overlooked beauty of the everyday". Her complex process involves drawing on a plywood block, carving or etching it, then hand-painting with watercolour before printing either in small editions or as a unique impression. Awareness of this painstaking method makes her images, such as Nasturtiums 2002 (Art Gallery of New South Wales), all the more remarkable.

A Christmas card from a friend in Australia featuring Bedroom nocturne 2022 (National Gallery of Australia) prompted us to find out more about the artist Cressida Campbell whose work is on the Post this week. Her intricate woodblock paintings, "located uniquely between painting and printmaking", document her life with "spontaneous still-life arrangements of food and flowers and introspective views within the rooms of her Sydney home".

In 2010, Wallace Sewell won an open competition to design a new moquette, the now iconic 'Barman'. Again, it incorporates the London Underground roundel, and includes four London landmarks: St Paul's Cathedral, the London Eye, Big Ben and Tower Bridge (this short video explains the design). It is used on the Northern, Central, and Jubilee lines and, in a slightly different colourway, on the Bakerloo line.

The highly talented and prolific Marianne Straub designed 'Straub' (c1966), one of the best known of all moquettes, and widely used on the Underground and buses. Andrew Martin, author of Seats of London (2019), a brilliant 'field-guide' to London Transport moquette patterns, calls it 'subtle and sophisticated'. Here is Queen Elizabeth II blending in with the design on the Piccadilly Line in December 1977. (From 2nd April to 2nd July there will be an exhibition devoted to Marianne Straub at The Fry Gallery in Saffron Walden.)

Many moquette designs cleverly adapt and incorporate the London Underground roundel. This is 'Canonbury' (c1937) by Marion Dorn (1896-1964) who is perhaps more famous for her Art Deco rugs designed for The Savoy, Claridge's, and Eltham Palace. 

Enid Marx (1902-98),'pioneer of pattern', designed at least four classic moquettes for London Underground, following the brief that the material should ‘look fresh at all times, even after bricklayers had sat on it’. This is 'Chevron' (1938) which was used on the Piccadilly and Central lines, and illustrates her discovery that ‘the best method of ensuring the seats would look clean after a period of use was to use strongly contrasting tones and rather brilliant colour’.

After a fascinating C20 Society guided tour of five of the new Elizabeth Line stations, this week we look at moquette (French for 'carpet'), the fabric which covers thousands of London bus and Tube train seats. Many of the designs which are sat upon every day are by women, including the new Elizabeth Line moquette which was created by Wallace Sewell. It is "a progression of the original design on the Liverpool Street to Shenfield line...[and] adds more pinstripe details, as a nod to the suits in the City of London and creating a sense of speed as the line travels from east to west."