Wednesday 24th August 2016
William Morris; Design for Trellis Wallpaper; 1863; watercolour on paper; Private Collection.
William Morris designed Trellis shortly after moving to the Red House, south of London. The gardens at the Red House were arranged in a Medieval style, with roses growing over trellises which enclosed the flowerbeds. This wallpaper pattern was inspired by these trellises. Trellis is typical of Morris's early wallpaper patterns. It combines simple bird and flower forms with a plain coloured background. It is a compromise between the boldly coloured pictorial patterns which were then popular with the general public, and the formalised flat patterns in muted tones which were promoted by the design reform movement. Philip Webb, the architect of the Red House, drew the birds for this wallpaper design. [source]
Wednesday 10th August 2016
William Morris (designer), Philip Webb (designer), John Henry Dearle (designer), Merton Abbey Workshop (maker), William Knight (maker), John Martin (maker) , William Sleath (maker); Forrest Tapestry (detail); 1887; tapestry woven wool and silk on a cotton warp; Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
William Morris' use of birds and animals in his early tapestries is a forebear to his later carpet patterns. This design, one of his most successful compositions, uses a dense cover of trailing acanthus leaves, as seen in his first tapestry 'Acanthus and Vine', into which have been placed Philip Webb's five studies of animals and birds.
The tapestry was woven by Morris & Co.'s three most senior weavers under the superintendence of William Morris. Bought by Aleco Ionides for 1 Holland Park, in London, it hung in the study together with an acanthus-leaf panel. [source]
Wednesday 3rd August 2016
May Morris (designer), Morris & Co. (retailer); Embroidered Panel; c. 1890; embroidered cotton in silks, ink; Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
This unfinished embroidery was bought as a kit from Morris & Co in the late nineteenth century. The firm sold embroideries in various levels of completion, as finished work, as kits complete with marked ground and silk and, more popularly, in this form with a small corner of the ground completed so that the recommended technique could be seen and followed at home. The stitches used include long and short, stem, outline and satin stitches.
This example was designed by William Morris's daughter May Morris, who managed the embroidery section of Morris & Co from 1885 until about 1896. [source]
Wednesday 27th July 2016
William Morris; Brother Rabbit Furnishing Textile; 1880-81; indigo-discharged & block printed cotton, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Sometimes known as Brer Rabbit, this design was inspired by a 17th century Italian silk first registered for fabric production in 1882 and named after the Uncle Remus childrens books popular at the time.
William Morris designed this pattern in anticipation of the opening of the Merton Abbey works in 1881, though it was not registered with the Patent Office Register of Designs until 1882. The pattern was specifically intended for the indigo discharge method, which he perfected at Merton Abbey; it eventually was produced in at least four other colorways. Morris' use of the paired animals and birds among fantastic foliage in this design clearly illustrates his interest in medieval European textiles. [source]
Wednesday 20th July 2016
Jeremy Deller; We Sit Starving Amidst Our Gold; 2013; mural; part of 'English Magic' for the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
William Morris, one of Deller’s political and artistic heroes, is depicted here as a colossal figure hurling Roman Abramovich’s yacht into the Venetian Lagoon. This refers to an incident in 2011 when Abramovich, a Russian oligarch, had moored the huge vessel alongside the Giardini, preventing the public from enjoying the view across the promenade. Deller imagines Morris as an avenging force, returning from the dead to punish the oligarch’s selfishness. Deller's work was part of his exhibition "English Magic" at the British Pavilion of the 2013 Venice Biennale, which later toured England. In 2014 Deller continued his exploration of Morris's artistic and political theory in the exhibition, "Love is Enough: William Morris and Andy Warhol". [source]
Wednesday 13th July 2016
David Mabb; Liubov Popova Untitled Textile Design on William Morris Wallpaper for HM; 2010; screenprint on wallpaper; Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
This print is one of 100 Mabb has made as a fundraising exercise for the journal Historical Materialism.
For some years now, David Mabb has been engaged in a posthumous collaboration with William Morris, using Morris fabrics and wallpapers as sources of inspiration, and also using them as grounds for paintings or incorporating them into printed works, as here. Mabb's interest in Morris focuses not only on the design of his patterns but also the inherent contradictions between Morris's political beliefs - he was a campaigning Socialist - and his practice as a designer and business-man - he made his living creating luxury goods that were affordable only by the upper middle-classes.
In this print Mabb contrasts the political philosophies and design practices of two artists who held Socialist views and produced designs intended to enhance the lives of the labouring classes. Each used pattern design as a medium to promote different forms of socialism and utopian enterprise. Morris's designs were hand-printed (and thus labour-intensive and costly), and his patterns were invariably flower and foliage designs suggestive of a nostalgia for rural life; Liubov Popova (1889-1924) was a member of the Russian Constructivist group of artists who promoted a radical socialism and produced a number of textile designs which were to be machine-printed (and therefore cheap), with simple abstract motifs. Mabb unites the craft aesthetic of Morris with the machine aesthetic of Popova. [source]
Wednesday 22nd June 2016
William Morris (designer), Morris & Co. (publisher), Jeffrey (printer); Willow Bough Wallpaper; 1887; block printed in distemper colours on paper; Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
One of Morris's most instantly recognisable and popular wallpaper designs, the Willow Bough was inspired by wild trees he had observed on country walks. In 1881 Morris gave a lecture entitled Some Hints on Pattern Designing in which he argued that the ideal pattern should have "unmistakable suggestions of gardens and fields." Morris found ideas for his designs in nature and in the simple woodcut illustrations in 16th-century herbals (books describing plants and their various uses in medicine and cookery). He owned several books of this kind, including a copy of Gerard's Herball (published 1597) in which a willow branch is illustrated.
The willow was one of Morris's favourite motifs and he used it in several of his designs for wallpaper and for textiles. In 1874 he designed Willow, a simple stylised representation of willow branches on a dark ground. Willow Bough is a more naturalistic version of this earlier pattern. [source]
Wednesday 15th June 2016
Carl Larsson (1853-1919); Between Christmas and New Year; 1894; watercolour & pencil; from the "At Home" series compiled by Larsson between 1894 and 1899.
Larsson was a Swedish painter and designer representative of the international Arts and Crafts Movement. In 1888 Carl, his wife Karin and their young family was given a small house, named Little Hyttnäs, in Sundborn by Karin's father Adolf Bergöö. Carl and Karin decorated and furnished this house according to their particular artistic taste and also for the needs of their growing family. Through Larsson's paintings and books, Little Hyttnäs became one of the most famous artist's homes in the world, transmitting the artistic taste of its creators and having an immediate impact on Swedish interior design. This watercolour was published by Larsson with over twenty others in At Home in 1899. Accompanied by a text on interior decoration and child rearing At Home was an international best seller and it did much to foster an idea of Swedish interior design that was heavily influenced by Old Norse style, medievalism, eighteenth-century Gustavian design, Scandinavian folk traditions and the Arts and Crafts Movement underway in England at the time. [source]
Wednesday 1st June 2016
John R. Parsons (photographer); Jane Morris, posed by Rossetti; 1865; albumen print photograph; Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Rossetti made drawings of Jane Burden before her marriage to his friend William Morris. However, their relationship, both personal and artistic, entered a new phase after 1865. It was then that the Morrises moved to central London and Jane began to model regularly for Rossetti.
Together, Rossetti and Jane Morris created the compelling image of female beauty that epitomised Rossetti's art when the paintings finally appeared in public in the memorial exhibitions held after his death.
In 1865, Rossetti commissioned a series of photographs of Jane Morris, posed in a marquee in his garden. The photographer was John Robert Parsons, about whom little is known.
Portrait photography was becoming increasingly popular in the 1860s. The photographs can be related loosely to the later pictures for which Jane modelled. However, none of the poses exactly matches any of Rossetti's paintings. The photographs are probably best regarded as experiments in pose, as well as mementoes of the sitter, rather than as substitutes for preparatory drawings. [source]
Wednesday 25th May 2016
William Morris; Design for the background of the "Autumn" panel of the Four Seasons stained glass piece at Cragside House; c. 1873; brush drawing in brown and black wash, over graphite; British Museum, London.
In 1861 William Morris set up his company Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co, known as ‘the Firm’, to provide fashionable families with everything they might need to furnish their homes in the new Arts and Crafts style. One of their biggest successes was stained glass, replacing church windows all over the country as well as working on private domestic commissions.
One such private commission was for Cragside in Northumberland. Built in the early 1860s for Lord Armstrong, a Victorian inventor, innovator and landscape gardening genius, Cragside was famous for all its technological innovations, such as its heating, lighting and early telephone systems. It was the first house in the world lit by hydroelectricity, using first hydraulic-powered arc lamps, and then the newly-invented incandescent lamps. The house was considered one of the wonders of the age, and was visited by the Prince and Princess of Wales in 1884, as well as by the Crown Prince of Japan and other notables.
The interior of Cragside is decorated in the Arts and Crafts style and features a fine collection of contemporary painting and sculpture. Flanking a 12ft-wide fireplace in the dining room are four stained glass panels designed by William Morris in 1873 each featuring an allegorical representation of a season.
Owned by the National Trust, today Cragside remains one of the most important examples of Arts and Crafts interior design and decoration. [source]
Wednesday 18th May 2016
William Morris (designer), Morris & Co. (decorator), Morris & Co. (retailer); Tile with Artichoke Design; c. 1870; solid buff earthenware body tile, covered in white slip & handprinted in pale blue; British Museum, London.
Hand-painted tiles became a popular feature of artistic interiors from the 1860s onwards. Such tiles regularly appear in houses decorated in the Arts and Crafts style, and were used widely by exponents of vernacular architecture. The most common setting for such tiles was in and around the fireplace.
William Morris's love of medieval imagery is well known. In addition, however, he shared with many of his contemporaries a keen interest in vernacular British architecture and decorative art of the 17th and 18th centuries. This enthusiasm is demonstrated in his approach to tile making. This was carried out using a variation of the techniques that had previously been employed by the manufacturers of tin-glazed earthenware (delftware) tiles. [source]
Wednesday 11th May 2016
Ford Madox Brown (possibly, designer), Morris, Marshall, Fawkner & Co. (furniture workers); Morris & Co. (Manufacturer & retailer); Round Seat Chair; c. 1870; ebonies wood, rush & metal; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
This chair was named after a country chair found in Sussex, which inspired the design with the turned frame and rush seat. Similar types of chairs, with imitation bamboo frames and rush seats, were fashionable between 1790 and 1820.
William Morris and his wife, Jane, used Sussex chairs in their first home, Red House, Bexleyheath, Kent, from 1860 and subsequently in their London house, Kelmscott House, Hammersmith. Morris's friend, Edward Burne-Jones had Sussex armchairs in his studio, as did the sculptor, Alfred Gilbert. Robert Edis recommended this chair as 'excellent, comfortable and artistic' in his influential book, 'Decoration and Furnishing of Town Houses in 1881'. Examples from the Sussex range were supplied for students' rooms at Newnham College, Cambridge, and for galleries in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
The Sussex range of modest seat furniture, which started with an armchair and a single chair, expanded as a result of the commercial success of the design. Eventually it included corner chairs, children's chairs, and settles. [source]
Wednesday 4th May 2016
William Morris (designer), Edward Burne-Jones (designer), William Harcourt Hooper (engraver), Kelmscott Press (publisher); Working proof of an illustration to 'The Tale of the Clerk of Oxenford' from "The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer" published by Kelmscott Press; 1896; wood engraving with hand-painted border in Indian ink, Chinese white and graphite on paper, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
William Morris founded the Kelmscott Press towards the end of his life. He wanted to revive the skills of hand printing, which mechanisation had destroyed, and restore the quality achieved by the pioneers of printing in the 15th century.
The magnificent The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer now newly imprinted, published in 1896, is the triumph of the press. Its 87 wood-cut illustrations are by Edward Burne-Jones, the celebrated Victorian painter, who was a life-long friend of Morris. The illustrations were engraved by William Harcourt Hooper and printed in black, with shoulder and side titles. Some lines were printed in red, using Chaucer type, with some titles in Troy type. The whole was printed on Batchelor handmade paper watermarked: Perch. [source]
Wednesday 27th April 2016
William Morris (designer), Jeffrey (Manufacturer), Morris & co. (publisher and retailer); Anemone Wallpaper; c. 1880; colour block print on paper; Victoria & Albert Museum, London
This wallpaper was printed for Morris's company by the London firm Jeffrey & Co., who specialised in high quality 'Art' wallpapers.
Morris was prompted to design his own wallpapers because he could not find any that he liked well enough to use in his own home.
This comes form an undated pattern book issued by Morris & Co. Many of Morris & Co.'s later wallpapers were designed by J. H. Dearle, and by other designers employed by the company.