"“The Beauty of Life”: William Morris and the Art of
Design
October 14, 2004-January 2, 2005
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT
William Morris (1834-1896) was among the most creative artists Britain
has ever produced. A man of tremendous energy, he was a revolutionary
interior designer and book printer, a staunch socialist, a famous and
prolific poet, a weaver, embroiderer, dyer, calligrapher, translator,
businessman, and architectural preservationist. He devoted his life to
the decorative arts as the head of the internationally successful firm,
Morris & Company, which he ran for over thirty years. Late in life,
he established the Kelmscott Press to produce books that were beautiful
objects in their own right. Morris defined art and beauty as integral to
life itself and wrote in his 1880 lecture, The Beauty of Life,
“Beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest
sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can
take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are
to live as nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less
than men.”
Organized by the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical
Gardens in San Marino, California, “The Beauty of Life”: William
Morris and the Art of Design presents almost 200 items from the
Huntington's collection of William Morris materials, the largest of its
kind outside of the United Kingdom. Additions have also been made
from the Center’s collections, and from the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library and the Yale University Library’s Arts of the Book
Collection. Included are original designs for stained glass,
wallpaper, textiles, embroidery, tapestry, and books, as well as
correspondence, a selection of rare editions published by the Kelmscott
Press, and the manuscript for Morris's major poetic work, The Earthly
Paradise. A spectacular 18-foot tall stained glass window
designed by Morris’s partner and life-long friend Edward Burne-Jones will
be featured in the Center’s entrance court.
Morris founded Morris & Company in 1861 with Burne-Jones, the artists
Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown, and the architect Philip
Webb. Morris took an active role in the firm's creative enterprises,
mastering all aspects of the production and design of stained glass,
wallpaper, printed and woven textiles, and tapestry. The Huntington's
collection in particular demonstrates the design and production processes
of the firm, from pencil and watercolor sketches to the company's
original Minute Book. In addition
to showcasing Morris and his partners' genius for design, the exhibition
explores Morris's fashioning of new forms and styles based upon his
passion for the art and culture of the past, building a modern art upon
medieval foundations. Morris's idealization of a medieval model of life
that integrated creativity and labor led him to become a committed
socialist, and a selection of material related to Morris’s political
activities will be on
view. A final section of the exhibition is devoted to the lesser-known
activities of the firm after Morris’s death until its dissolution in
1940, represented in the work of John Henry Dearle, Morris's chosen
successor as primary designer. Morris’s lifework inspired the Arts
and Crafts movement on both sides of the Atlantic and has proven lasting
in its visionary transformation of interior design into art.
A fully-illustrated companion publication, entitled “The Beauty of
Life”: William Morris and the Art of Design, edited by the exhibition
curator Diane Waggoner and published by Thames & Hudson, is available
in the Museum Shop.
For more information, visit the Center’s web site at
www.yale.edu/ycba or call
203-432-2800.
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