Which 19th/20th c. artists painted house interiors?

May 16, 2009 6:28 AM

Can you recall the names of any artists, especially 19th or 20th century, who covered the entire interiors of one or more houses with murals?

Once upon a time, an art history professor made casual mention of this in a class, and it faded into the morass of stew recipes, D&D attack tables, and verb conjugations at the bottom of my brain. This past week I was working on a short story and wanted to create an analogy between a mural in a factory and "one of those houses painted by [artist]." And now, for the life of me, I can't remember who the artist(s) was/were.

I've poked around on Google, Wikipedia, etc. I've also consulted an art historian colleague (though this isn't her specialty), and she thought maybe Goya, but that doesn't seem to have been who I was thinking of. Note: I am actually a reference librarian, but before embarking on an exhaustive search, I thought I'd see if anyone out there happened to know it off the top of their head. Thanks in advance.

posted by cupcakeninja to media & arts (8 comments total)

Max Ernst painted murals inside his friend Paul Eluard's house.
Miro did some great murals (the only ones I've seen are outside but it's likely he did domestic murals also).
Jackson Pollock did a wall-size painting in Peggy Guggenheim's house
posted by Jason and Laszlo at 6:58 AM on May 16

This could be almost anyone, but the Nabis did a lot of interior decoration. Edouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, Ker-Xavier Roussel. Especially Denis.
posted by fire&wings at 7:30 AM on May 16

Goya and his Black Paintings.
posted by hermitosis at 7:42 AM on May 16

Antoni Gaudi - for example in this building.
posted by rongorongo at 7:45 AM on May 16

Kurt Schwitters turned three of his homes into a elaborate junk sculptures, the Merzbau, two of which were destroyed, but one remains in England. The audio project Merzbow was named after these.
posted by idiopath at 10:05 AM on May 16

walter anderson

posted by neelhtak at 1:11 PM on May 16

Made me think of Vanessa Bell and her house Charleston but I don't think the house had full-on murals. But who knows? I could be wrong.
posted by nnk at 3:03 PM on May 16

Thank you, folks! Much obliged. I'll go through these links and see what looks appropriate for my protagonist's frame of mind, experience of art, etc.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:04 AM on May 17