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Always a man of innovation, Morris
soon tired of the subject matter and philosophy of the Pre-Raphaelites. His desire for social reform was also an important factor in his artistic growth and he moved from painting to the creation of textiles, wallpapers, stained glass and highly decorative furniture. He also set up the Kelmscott Press
as a medium for his writing and elegant book design. With Edward Burne-Jones,
he set in motion the highly influential Arts and Crafts Movement - thereby implementing an incredible change in the vision of British art.
Sourced from the book, Essential William Morris. Direct link here to the book @ ebay.co.uk.
Most of the info sourced below (apart from NT comments) is from the informative and always well priced, Essential William Morris. Plus there are quite a few stunning reproductions. Direct link here to the book @ ebay.co.uk.
The Morris family descended from Welsh origin.
His parents William and Emma Morris had nine children of whom William was the third child and the eldest son to live to maturity.
In 1840, his father's successful speculation in a copper mine in Devonshire allowed the family to move from Elm House in Walthamstow to Woodford Hall, a magnificient Palladian villa in Epping Forest.
Morris's father died in 1848. After his father's death, the family resettled in Walthamstow in a Georgian vills, Water House.
Received an annuity of £900 a year upon his father's death.
Visited Canterbury Cathedral as a youngster.
Read all of Sir Walter Scott's Waverley novels by the age of nine.
As a child visited Queen Elizabeth I's hunting lodge at Chingford Hatch.
Was sent to Marlborough College - a new public school for the sons of the emergent Victorian middle class in his day.
At Marlborough discovered the reformative aspirations of the High Church Oxford Movement in the 1830s.
In 1853 he went up to Exeter College, Oxford.
Morris married Jane Burden, the daughter of a stable-hand in 1859. Richard Dixon, an old Oxford friend, married the couple.
The couple's first home was The Red House, a villa in Bexleyheath, near London. Now a National Trust property, as of 2016 it has an £8 adult entrance charge for starters. Like everything William Morris these days it bears no relation to anything remotely similar to Social Reform. Why not set a price where most of the people, most of the time, can enjoy the place? Morris himself, I suppose, had a surprising but necessary relationship with Privilege - I guess the NT are carrying on that tradition.
In the spring of 1861, Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. published a confident prospectus declaring their ambitions to create a new Decorative Art inspired by the skills and integrity of the medieval guilds.
Their work was included in the Medieval Court at the World's Fair, held at South Kensington in 1862.
Their first big commission was for G.F. Bodley, to design and make the stained glass windows for the many churches he had designed in Gloucestershire, Brighton and Scarborough and All Saints' Church and Jesus Chapel in Cambridgeshire.
Two important commissions came in 1866: to decorate every aspect of the Green Dining Room in the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) and the Armoury and Tapestry Rooms at St James's Palace.
Stained glass was the lynchpin of their work in the early years.
Morris excelled in the design of wallpapers. Philip Webb's furniture, often
decorated by
Rossetti, Burne-Jones
and Morris, was successful.
Messrs Jeffrey and Co. Of Islington carved Morris's patterns into pear wood blocks that were then hand-painted.
Morris bought out the shares of Rossetti, Marshall and Faulkner
in the firm for £1,000 each. In 1875, Morris and Co. Was formed, with only Burne-Jones, Philip Webb and Morris providing
the designs.
Between 1875 and 1882, Morris created the multitude of wallpaper and textile designs for which he is best remembered.
In 1877 the firm opened a shop in Oxford Street.
In 1878 Morris moved into Kelmscott House, an eighteenth-century brick house overlooking the Thames in Hammersmith.
Morris visited Iceland in 1871 and 1873. He met the great Icelandic
scholar Eirikr Magnusson in 1862.
Morris and Co. moved its operations to Merton Abbey, a group of buildings originally used for printing, in north Surrey on the River Wandle. Today it's part of that sprawling mess that is the suburbs of London - you know, little places of leafy yesteryear surviving in the concrete grey jungle of South London.
Was instrumental in forming the Art Worker's Guild in 1884 and the Art and Craft Exhibition Society in 1886.
Designed a wallpaper for Queen Victoria's new alace at Balmoral in Scotland.
Treasurer of The Liberal League in 1880.
Joined Henry Mayer's Hyndman's Socialist Democrat Federation in 1883.
The Oxford and Cambridge published his first literary efforts in the 1850s.
The Kelmscott Chaucer has 87 woodcuts by Burne-Jones and decorations by Morris.
Kelmscott published 53 exquisitely illustrated books between 1891 and 1898.
Wilfred Scawen Blunt (1840-1922) was a noted poet and diplomat and by 1890 had known
Morris for several years. In 1891,
he purchased the very first Kelmscott book to come off the presses. His relationship with the artist must have been somewhat strained, however, as he had conducted a prolonged affair with Jane Morris. She proof-read the text of the Love-Lyrics ((1892), by Blunt & published by the Kelmscott Press)), the only occasion on which she was actively involved with production work at the Kelmscott Press.
He experimented freely with different colours and styles of ornamentation in his books.
The History of Reynard The Foxe was published in 1893. It was based on
William Caxton's translation of 1841. The Press also issued a few copies of Reynard on vellum, which were aimed at collectors and sold for 15 guineas apiece.
The Story of the Glittering Plain (1891) was the first book published by the Kelmscott Press. It had originally been published in the English Illustrated Magazine the year previous. In 1894, Morris published a more lavish second edition, featuring 23 illustrations by Walter Crane.
The Glittering Plain was set in Morris's first type-face, the Golden type.
Glittering Plain is the only book brought out in two editions by the Kelmscott Press.
Froissart's Chronicles had been one of Morris's favourite books ever since his Oxford days, and he long cherished the idea of producing a new edition for the Kelmscott Press. Indeed a first trial page was laid out in 1892 but remain unfinished at Morris's death, and the project was eventually abandoned.
Most of the books published by the Kelmscott Press were produced in two formats: standard and deluxe.
For The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1896) the deluxe editions were to be printed on vellum and were to have a choice of four special bindings: a full or half pigskin produced at the Doves Bindery, or a different full or half pigskin designed by Frederic, Lord Leighton. In the end, however, only the Doves' full pigskin design appears to have been used, although there is a dummy copy of the book in the Leighton binding at Columbia University.
One of the pigskin copies of the Chaucer was
later owned by Lawrence
of Arabia.
For the Kelmscott Chaucer Burne-Jones and Morris
had to design a new typeface. The first copies of the book were printed in June, 1896, just four months before Morris's death.
Burne-Jones produced 87 illustrations for the text for the Kelmscott Chaucer. 40 had originally been envisaged. These were set in 18 different frames, designed by Morris.
News From Nowhere is Morris's best-known prose work. The Kelmscott edition of the tale was completed in November 1892. It was serialised in The Commonweal in 1890 and published in book-form by Reeves & Turner in 1891.
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From the Wallpaper Stand-Book (1905)
"These Papers are Printed By Hand
MORRIS AND COMPANY are often asked "What is the advantage of hand-printed papers over those printed by machine?"
HAND-PRINTED PAPERS are produced very slowly, each block used being dipped into pigment and then firmly pressed on to the paper, giving a great body of colour. This process takes place with each separate colour, which is slowly dried before another is applied. The consequence is that in the finished paper there is a considerable mass of solid colour..."
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Kelmscott Manor is in the Cotswolds. Morris began renting it in 1871. This was the time of
Rossetti's affair with his wife Jane and, between 1871 and 1874, the two of them were living there together, virtually as man and wife.
In the mid-1850s he went on a tour of French cathedrals with
Burne-Jones.
Morris wove the tapestry for Acanthus and Vine (Cabbage and Vine) (1879) in his bedroom at Kelmscott House, taking a phenomenal 516 hours to complete it.
Woodpecker Tapestry (1885) is probaly Morris's most famous tapestry and one of only three which he designed entirely by himself. The delicate border of trailing honeysuckle and a verse inscription was embroidered
by May Morris and her assistants.
Henry Dearle was an associate of Morris's and remained with the Firm for his entire career. He held two vital posts, acting as the company's art director and as the controller of the Merton Abbey's works. He stayed on until his death in 1932, when his son Duncan took over as works' manager.
La Belle Iseult (Low Resolution Photo, Detail), 1857-58
Fruit Wallpaper (Low Resolution Photo, Detail), c. 1866
Sunflower Wallpaper (Low Resolution Photo, Detail), 1877-78
Design for St James's Wallpaper (Low Resolution Photo, Detail), c. 1880
Design for Windrush Wallpaper (Low Resolution Photo, Detail), 1881-83
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