Constance Spry and the Fashion for Flowers: colour at the Garden Museum

Few figures have had such a lasting influence on British floral design as Constance Spry. Celebrated for her unconventional approach to arranging flowers, Spry transformed the way people thought about floristry, finding beauty in everything from garden roses to hedgerow branches and everyday vegetables.

Her remarkable life and legacy were explored in Constance Spry and the Fashion for Flowers, an exhibition at London’s Garden Museum, guest curated by renowned floral designer Shane Connolly.

Edward Bulmer Natural Paint was delighted to provide the paint for the exhibition, working with Shane and artist Robin Lucas to create a series of distinctive colour schemes inspired by Spry’s interiors, career and creative philosophy.

The extraordinary legacy of Constance Spry

Constance Spry opened her first flower shop, Flower Decoration, in 1929, bringing a radically different approach to floristry.

Rather than following conventional rules, she combined traditional flowers with unexpected materials, including kale, pussy willow and foliage gathered from hedgerows.

Her arrangements were expressive, imaginative and often deliberately informal, challenging established ideas of what constituted beautiful floral decoration.

Spry’s influence extended far beyond her flower shop. She established schools, published thirteen books and created floral designs for some of the most significant social occasions of her time, including the 1937 wedding of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson and the coronation celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

Today, her appreciation for seasonal materials and natural forms continues to inspire florists and designers.

Bringing Spry’s world to life through colour

Guest curator Shane Connolly approached the exhibition as a series of rooms, each reflecting a different aspect of Spry’s life and career.

Working with artist Robin Lucas, he selected Edward Bulmer Natural Paint colours that would evoke the character of Spry’s own interiors while providing a fitting backdrop for the objects, photographs and archival material on display.

Shane explained:

“They all remembered a comfortable plainness, and the feeling of light, pale elegance in every Spry-inspired interior.”

These recollections helped inform the exhibition’s colour palette, which combined gentle neutrals with stronger accents.

Whiting, Spanish White and Tingry: recreating Spry’s interiors

For the section exploring Spry’s home, Shane and Robin chose Whiting, a warm, creamy off-white.

Its understated character reflected the simplicity and elegance associated with her domestic interiors.

The room representing Spry’s flower shop was painted in Spanish White, a cooler neutral that recalled the shop’s distinctive black-and-white decorative scheme.

This was complemented by Tingry, a deep, almost-black shade.

Together, the colours recreated the contrast remembered by those who had visited or worked in Spry’s celebrated shop, allowing the flowers and objects on display to remain the focus.

Olympian Green: a backdrop for Fulham Pottery

One of the exhibition’s most striking displays brought together a collection of Spry’s famous Fulham Pottery vases.

Robin Lucas suggested painting the wall behind them in Olympian Green, introducing a lively contrast to the surrounding neutral palette.

Shane described the choice as:

“A joyous splash of Olympian Green, at once contemporary and yet fashionably retro too.”

The colour provided a distinctive backdrop for the sculptural forms of the pottery, demonstrating how a stronger shade can bring new attention to historic objects.

Eau de Nile: a setting for 1930s wedding photographs

Another room explored Spry’s celebrated wedding commissions of the 1930s.

Here, Shane chose Eau de Nile, a soft green with a delicate, muted quality.

The walls provided a backdrop for black-and-white photographs of glamorous weddings, displayed against trompe l’oeil grisaille panels inspired by those created by Martin Battersby for Duff and Lady Diana Cooper.

Shane described Eau de Nile as one of his favourite Edward Bulmer colours, noting how the green brought out the decorative detail of the grisaille.

The combination of colour, historic references and carefully considered display design helped evoke the elegance of the period without overwhelming the exhibition’s archival material.

Natural colour and the art of flowers

For Shane, the decision to use Edward Bulmer Natural Paint was a particularly fitting one.

“It is the perfect match; plant based paints for an artist who used plants and flowers!”

Like Spry’s approach to floristry, our paintmaking philosophy begins with an appreciation of natural materials.

Using plant-based binders and carefully selected earth and mineral pigments, we create colours that complement both historic and contemporary interiors.

The exhibition demonstrated how colour can contribute to storytelling, helping visitors experience different aspects of Spry’s world through the atmosphere of each room.

Reflecting on the finished exhibition, Shane remarked that visitors felt as though they had stepped back in time, crediting the subtle variations and settled appearance of the painted surfaces.

We were delighted to support the Garden Museum, Shane Connolly and Robin Lucas in bringing this celebration of Constance Spry’s extraordinary life to the public.

Discover more about our natural paint and ingredients or explore the colours featured in the exhibition: Whiting, Spanish White, Tingry, Olympian Green and Eau de Nile.

Exhibition: Constance Spry and the Fashion for Flowers, Garden Museum, London. Guest curator: Shane Connolly. Colour collaboration: Shane Connolly and Robin Lucas.