May Morris: Arts & Crafts Designer

Description

May Morris (1862-1938), younger daughter of William Morris, was a highly original designer and leading female exponent of the British Arts & Crafts movement. Specializing in embroidery, she designed some of Morris & Co.'s most important textiles, and clients as far afield as Australia and the US collected her work. Long overshadowed by her famous father, to whom her work was often attributed then and since, May contributed to the enduring popularity of Morris designs. May was one of the leading pioneers of 'art embroidery' and helped raise its status from an amateur pastime to a serious pursuit, requiring skills in design, colouring and technique. She disseminated her ideas through publications, lectures and by teaching at many of the leading art schools, influencing a generation of students in London, Birmingham and Manchester. This book, and accompanying exhibition at the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, covers the full range of May Morris's, work, from watercolours and designs to exquisite embroideries, book covers, costume and jewellery. It offers new insights into May's personal life and relationships, her social activism and her efforts to support other professional women who sought to make a living as artists and designers.

Anna Mason is a former curator and manager of the William Morris Gallery, London, winner of the Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year 2013. She has also worked for the National Trust at Red House, and organized many exhibitions on Morris and his legacy. She is currently editing the correspondence of May Morris with Dr Margaretta Frederick. Jan Marsh is the author of Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, Jane and May Morris and biographies of Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She has also curated exhibitions on 19th-century art and artists, including 'Black Victorians: Black People in British Art 1800-1900', held at Manchester City Art Gallery and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in 2005. She is former president of the William Morris Society and a Trustee of the Brangwyn Gift at the William Morris Gallery. Jenny Lister is a curator of textiles and fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum, specializing in the nineteenth century. Her publications include The V&A Gallery of Fashion and London Society Fashion 1905-1925: The Wardrobe of Heather Firbank. Rowan Bain is curator at the William Morris Gallery and was formerly assistant curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She is the author of several books and a contributor to May Morris: Arts & Crafts Designer. Hanne Faurby is assistant curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum specializing in nineteenth-century design. Her research encompasses textiles, fashion, jewellery and embellishment with particular interest in social-reform influences on the creative industry.

'Lavishly illustrated' - The Spectator