The English Print Room had virtually lay dormant for well over a century. It's demise in popularity was attributed partly to the changing trends in decorating fashions and to the complexity of creating a Print Room at that time. It was completely relegated to museum archives until Nicola Wingate-Saul was hired as a curator for Castletown House in County Kildare, Ireland. It was then that Desmond Guiness, it's then owner and head of the Irish Georgian Society, opened up a door to a room one day to expose its walls filled with prints glued upon them, some borders missing,
some partially fallen off. He handed her a challenge. She was handy. Could she could fix it? After researching through books and museums archives, Nicola pieced together history and was able to 'fix' , or actually restore, the Print Room at Castletown, the only existing original Print Room in Ireland. The challenge she was handed had become a passion and a life long career.
The First Print Room in the Revival Period
Nicola Wingate-Saul has since been the leader of the revival of Print Rooms in the world. When asked how she ventured out after her experience at Castletown, she answered as follows.
"I was asked by Desmond Guiness to make a Print Room for him at Leixlip Castle. Having agreed, he shut me in the library with a book of engravings of the ceilings of Versailles (which I subsequently discovered to be worth several thousand pounds), my embroidery scissors, my greyhound and Edward James, (the illegitimate son of Edward VII) an early patron of the surrealist artists, who kept
me entertained for days and days with reminiscences of Dali, Picasso,
Garbo... It was my first Print Room and quite the most enjoyable to make."
Print Rooms done by Nicola Wingate-Saul
Printrooms.com only carries exclusively Nicola's fine collection of reproduction of borders and hanging pieces. True to being a purist, Nicola has had the exact designs and a few original of her own printed on the same papers at the same mills as were the originals done in the 18th century. We are proud to be associated and to work closely with Nicola in all aspects of our work.
