Watercolour. – Circa 1940’s

These designs were intended for dress fabrics or wall coverings and upholstery designs. Some were entered for national design awards.

In Cloud Poppies, Amy Finney transforms a botanical study into a dreamlike wallpaper of soft elegance and rhythmic flow. Delicate poppy blooms unfurl across a sky-blue ground, their blush-pink petals edged in fine ink lines and surrounded by airy, stippled textures that resemble drifting clouds or pollen on the breeze. The composition evokes both the natural precision of an herbarium and the decorative beauty of Art Nouveau design.

Finney’s use of repetition and muted contrast turns the ephemeral into something enduring, celebrating both the fragility and resilience of nature. As with much of her work, there’s a quiet lyricism here—a sense that beauty, when carefully observed, becomes its own form of storytelling.