Art, Design & William Morris
I have been a long-time member of the William Morris Society. I have contributed to their conferences plus occasional newsletter articles and Philippa Bennett and Rosie Miles’ book William Morris in the twenty first century was one of my nominations for book of the year published in The Guardian in January 2011.
I was elected to the national Committee of the Society in May 2011. I have written a review article for the ‘Morris the Green’ special edition of the Society’s Journal due out at the end of 2011 and am in the early stages of organizing a Society trip to Iceland in the foot steps of Morris, for the summer of 2013. Let me know if your are interested in joining this.
Two recent exhibitions I have been to have impressed.
Lucien Pissarro in England: the Eragny Press 1895-1914 at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Fantastic press. I didn’t know anything about till I went to the exhibition. Makes the connections with Morris, the Kelmscott Press and that whole circle of bookbinders and engravers.
The National Portrait Gallery in London had a fascinating exhibition, Hoppe Portraits: society, studio and street. EO Hoppe had an amazing range as the title suggests. Some of the portraits of people I’ve never been able to put a face to the name of before, Havelock Ellis, Thomas Hardy and Gluck are striking in their intensity. But I liked the ‘street’ ones the most, pictures of everyday people, bus drivers, postmen, street musicians in Britain between the wars.