Tuesday 4 August 2020

william morris for the 21st century

What William Morris produced was beautiful:



And the best place to go to see his work is the Victoria and Albert Museum:

But he was much more than a designer of exquisite fabrics:

William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a revolutionary force in Victorian Britain: his work as an artist, designer, craftsman, writer and socialist dramatically changed the fashions and ideologies of the era.

From 1871 Morris rented the rural retreat of Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire. He moved his London home to Kelmscott House, the current home of the Society, in 1878. Alongside his work for the firm, Morris produced a series of English-language translations of Icelandic sagas with Eiríkr Magnússon, as he was greatly inspired by his visits to Iceland. He also achieved success with the publication of his epic poems and novels, namely ... the utopian News from Nowhere (1890), and the fantasy romance The Well at the World’s End (1896). In 1877 he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to campaign against the damage caused by Victorian architectural ‘restoration’.


The Society is still very active today:

And Morris is still very relevant to today:

So how does a 185-year-old designer, socialist and poet still have relevance today? “He was looking at nature, but also at how we manufacture goods, and that’s really key now, particularly with the kind of throwaway culture that we are moving away from,” says Dr Alice Strickland, curator at Standen.

But where would Morris have fit in today’s world? Strickland ponders for a moment. “I think he would be fighting for environmental causes. He had moved away [from fabrics] towards the end of his life. When he died, the doctor said he died of just being William Morris – he fitted so much into his life.”
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