William Morris

"This book has proven absolutely indispensable to my own research over the years. Despite having been conceived as an exhibition catalogue it has stood the test of time and in my view is still unrivalled as the definitive visual guide to Morris, and Morris & Co. It was in fact the world’s first visual compendium to present the complete range and scale of Morris’s work not only as a designer, craftsman and manufacturer, but also as an author and poet, political activist and conservationist. The volume is presented under three key headings – ‘The Man,’ ‘The Art,’ and ‘The Legacy’ — and provides in one book an overview of the life and work of an extraordinary man with a particular focus on the visual arts. There are splendid overviews of Morris & Co’s furniture, tiles and tableware, wallpapers, calligraphy, and Kelmscott Press designs, as well as Linda Parry’s stupendous chapters on domestic decoration and textiles, the latter covering embroidery, printed cottons, carpets and tapestries. Remarkably, everything shown in the exhibition was catalogued in the book, bringing together over 600 illustrations and key Morris objects from around the world. Linda Parry’s seminal contribution to Morris scholarship in the area of all of his decorative arts (not least textiles) cannot be overstated. Her monumental work continues to be the foundation and inspiration for ongoing scholarship today. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter In recognition of the value and continuing appeal of this extraordinary book, in October 2021, 25 years after its original publication, Thames & Hudson in partnership with the V&A will be bringing out a new updated edition. Linda has been involved in its preparation and the new editor is Anna Mason, former Director of the William Morris Gallery, who is a very talented art historian with a real commitment to promoting Morris’s vision. Anna can be credited for the resurgence of scholarship on May Morris. She was co-editor of May Morris: Arts & Crafts Designer , and is currently editing her letters with Margaretta S. Frederick. The new edition will follow the same structure as the original edition, and will reflect new findings, archives and objects that have come to light over the past three decades – for example the recent revelation of the original decorative scheme at Red House, new scholarship on Philip Webb and George Jack, and newly re-discovered artefacts such as the Peacock and Bird carpet, and two painted chairs from Red Lion Square acquired by Delaware in 1997. With splendid new photography and additional illustrations, it promises to be a visual feast. Again, due to the incredible breadth of Morris and his associates’ activities, William Morris relies on expert contributions from numerous leading scholars. I am honoured to be a part of it. In my own new chapter on Morris’s painting and drawing, I am tracing the vital role of Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the professionalisation of Morris’s decorative arts practice, including the Pre-Raphaelite artist’s part in the foundation and activities of Morris, Marshall, Morris & Co, in which the practice of painting initially played far greater role than previously acknowledged. In my pursuit of 19th-century visual arts I have been blessed with Florence Boos’s and Linda Parry’s mentorship over the last decade. In my academic career, these are the two people I go to for answers to even to the most obscure questions. I don’t want to call them walking encyclopaedias, because that wouldn’t do justice to their lifelong dedication for their work – for me, they are the ultimate authorities on the subject and they are very generous in encouraging the next generations of Morris scholars. Young Poland: The Arts and Crafts Movement, 1890-1918 , which I have co-edited with Andrzej Szczerski, is the result of a larger three-year international research and exhibition project, done in partnership between the William Morris Gallery , the National Museum in Kraków and the Polish Cultural Institute in London. An exhibition on the same subject will open at the William Morris Gallery in October 2021. In spite of the challenges of the past year, the book has been possible thanks to a most fortuitous constellation of people and organisations. Andrzej Szczerski, Professor of Art History from Jagiellonian University and Director of the National Museum in Kraków, is an expert on the cultural exchange between Poland and Great Britain around 1900, and the history of Polish design and architecture in the 19th and 20th centuries. My own doctoral specialism is Victorian art and design with particular reference to the British Arts and Crafts movement, Dante Gabriel Rossetti , and William Morris. Our fellow Young Poland project curator, Roisin Inglesby, is Senior Curator of the William Morris Gallery and her experimental work focusses on Morris’s international connections. The William Morris Gallery holds an internationally significant collection and archive of the British Arts and Crafts Movement while the National Museum in Kraków, Poland’s oldest national museum, has the largest collection of Young Poland objects – a perfect match all around and a great team of colleagues! Our book is the world’s first study of the Young Poland movement systematically shown from the international Arts and Crafts perspective. Over the last century, Young Poland has been viewed primarily in reference to the fine arts, and almost exclusively in the context of European Art Nouveau, not allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the complexity and values of the movement. Crucially, the Art Nouveau perspective is contrary to how many Young Poland makers viewed their own practice. Many of them, including for example Stanisław Wyspiański and Karol Kłosowski, openly disassociated themselves from the style, as not sufficiently original or native. We therefore very much hope that our book can contribute to changing the existing paradigm by arguing that Young Poland displayed more fundamental parallels with the international Arts and Crafts movement. The Polish Arts and Crafts perspective has been debated in books since the 1990s, including pioneering research in David Crowley’s book National Style and Nation-State ; Jan Cavanaugh’s Out Looking In ; and Andrzej Szczerski’s brilliant monograph on the reception of British art in Central Europe, with special reference to Pre-Raphaelitism and the Arts and Crafts movement, Views of Albion ( originally published in Polish as ‘ Models of Identity’ ). There were also chapters on the Arts and Crafts of Poland in two extensive and richly illustrated overviews of the international Arts and Crafts movement – Rosalind Blakesley’s The Arts and Crafts Movement , and Linda Parry and Karen Livingstone’s superb International Arts and Crafts ."