At an antiques fair, Judith Harris, Head of Home at TOAST, came across a framed fragment of wallpaper by British artist and designer Peggy Angus. The design, Corn Stooks, “seemed to perfectly represent the idea of the harvest,” Judith says. “The colours evoke the warm light of that time of year.” It felt particularly relevant to TOAST’s Autumn Winter 2026 collection, Marking the Turn, which explores the changing seasons. The discovery led Judith to look more closely at Angus’s life and work, eventually connecting with her family. A series of collaborative conversations resulted in TOAST reproducing one of Angus’s archival designs on a quilt and cushion cover for the new collection.
Born in 1904, Angus was a painter, designer and influential educator whose work extended from hand-printed wallpapers to architectural tiles. She studied at the Royal College of Art, initially intending to become a painter, before training as a teacher. Her granddaughters, Amy and Emma Gibson, now manage her estate. Emma recalls the practical demands of Angus’s early life. As a single mother, she supported her family through teaching and design commissions, while continuing to pursue her own artistic interests.
An independent and sociable character, Angus surrounded herself with creative people. Her home at Furlongs in Sussex became a gathering place for artists, including Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden, while her London studio was filled with books and drawings. Emma, who lived with her grandmother intermittently for around fifteen years, remembers the constant stream of visitors. “She absolutely loved having people around her,” she says. Many were former pupils or younger architects, drawn to Angus’s encouragement and forthright character. “She was not scared of speaking her mind,” Emma recalls.
Her homes were an extension of her artistic practice, with colour and pattern covering the surfaces and work spilling into the living spaces. Angus continued to paint throughout her life, recording the places she visited through drawing. “She always always carried a sketchbook with little pencils,” Emma remembers. Visits to Shetland, where her family lived, resulted in numerous watercolours and sketches. Folk art was another enduring source of inspiration, particularly Polish paper cuts and historic Celtic designs, which she studied through her extensive collection of books.
Angus began developing her architectural tile designs in the 1950s, working with architects on commissions for public buildings, including Gatwick Airport. She used small lino blocks to print repeating patterns, demonstrating how the designs would appear across a tiled surface. According to Emma, it was an architect who suggested that she adapt the prints into wallpaper. The earliest wallpaper patterns grew out of her small-scale tile designs, before she began developing larger lino blocks for subsequent patterns.
The printing process was labour-intensive. Each wallpaper was made by hand from carved lino blocks, often with the help of art students or young friends whom Angus taught to print. Emma was among them, producing wallpaper while living with her grandmother in London and continuing the practice in Shetland after Angus's death. “I could probably do one roll in about two or three hours,” she recalls. “At a push, when I was in my prime, I could do two rolls in a day but that was it.”
Angus approached each commission personally, researching the interests of the people who would live with her designs. “She wanted to design a specific order, a specific wallpaper for a specific house,” explains Emma. Once the original block had been carved, it could be printed again for others, allowing each design to take on a life of its own.
This season, TOAST hand block-printed quilt in linen-cotton and a cushion printed with the Small Damask design by Angus. Emma believes the pattern was originally conceived as a tile design before being adapted into wallpaper. Its small repeat and interplay of positive and negative space give it a particular rhythm. “We chose the small damask design because we loved the positive/negative use of pattern, and also because we loved the naivety of the mark-making,” Judith explains.
Judith worked with Amy, a textile designer herself, to discuss the colours for the collaboration. Drawing on other prints from Peggy’s archive, the TOAST team developed an exclusive colourway of the small damask pattern. Preserving the texture and irregularity of Peggy’s original printing was particularly important to the family, informing the approach to reproducing the design.
To recreate the character of Angus’s original work, the TOAST team travelled to Bagru in Rajasthan, taking a piece of the original small damask wallpaper with them. Working alongside skilled block printers, they developed hand-carved blocks, experimenting with colour and pressure to capture the character of the original lino-cut design. “We worked on mixing the right colours and applying the right pressure when printing with the block, to ensure the design really reflected her work and her spirit,” Judith explains. The subtle variation within each impression gives the pattern its tactile quality, allowing the hand of the maker to remain visible across the fabric.
For Emma, the collaboration is part of a wider effort to bring greater recognition to Angus’s work. Alongside her sister Amy, she oversees the extensive collection of designs and original blocks, many of which remain in Emma’s care in Shetland. A further archive, held at The Keep near Brighton, contains around 250 boxes of research and correspondence, alongside drawings accumulated over Angus’s lifetime. Given the scale, much of it remains to be fully catalogued. On one visit, Emma opened a box at random to discover sketches from a trip to Russia. “I don’t have any particular favourite pieces as such, because every time I see something it just sparks off so many memories.”
The sisters are keen to encourage new interpretations of Angus’s designs while preserving the integrity of her work. Emma hopes that future projects will help establish a fuller picture of her grandmother’s contribution, particularly her experience as a woman working across art and design. “We're trying to show that there's another side to her which is far more than just a painter,” she says. Reflecting on her grandmother’s philosophy, Emma remembers an artist for whom making was an essential part of living: “She just thought that everybody should be doing art and creating.”
For Judith, bringing Peggy’s designs into the TOAST collection is a way of keeping historical patterns alive and drawing attention to the stories behind them. “Particularly in the age of technology, there is a richness and uniqueness to be found in archival patterns. There is a soul there,” she says. Beyond the designs themselves, Peggy’s approach to art and everyday life continues to resonate. As Judith reflects, “Her way of living is a wonderful story in itself and something we can all learn from.”
Discover the Peggy Angus Small Damask Block Print Quilt and Cushion Cover.
Words by Alice Simkins Vyce.
Add a comment