William Morris's Flowers


Book Description

A beautiful and informative gift book devoted to designs by William Morris that incorporate flowers—a central motif in his oeuvre and one that played a part in the majority of his designs. The leading figure of the Arts and Crafts Movement, William Morris (1834–1896) is one of the best-known and most popular of all British designers. A passionate advocate of craftsmanship over mass production, he designed a huge variety of objects, but it is his spectacular carpet, fabric, and wallpaper patterns that have continued to capture the popular imagination and influence interior designers and the decorative arts. Around six hundred such designs are attributed to Morris, most of which are based on nature, including trees, plants, and flowers. This beautifully designed, accessibly priced gift book offers a wealth of designs by Morris where flowers are the principal motif. The text traces the origins of Morris’s flower-based designs: his own gardens at the Red House in Kent; sixteenth- and seventeenth-century herbals; illuminated medieval manuscripts; late medieval and Renaissance tapestries; and the range of decorated objects, particularly from the Islamic world, that Morris studied at the South Kensington Museum, now the Victoria and Albert Museum. Authored by Rowan Bain, senior curator at the William Morris Gallery, and lavishly illustrated with over one hundred color illustrations, William Morris’s Flowers will both inform and delight.




William Morris Full-Color Patterns and Designs


Book Description

Forty of the Victorian master's most famous designs for wallpapers, chintzes, velveteens, tapestries, tiles, carpets, and more. Reproduced from original color plates of The Art of William Morris.




William Morris in Appliqué


Book Description

Capture the glory of the historic textile designer’s work in exquisite appliqué quilts, cushions, and wallhangings, featuring an array of motifs. No artist ever captured the beauty of nature in such exquisite detail as William Morris. Now Michele Hill has transformed his graceful birds, flowers, vines, and woodland creatures into appliqué designs any quilter can master. • Turn William Morris' designs into 6 lovely appliqué projects: quilts, cushions, and wallhangings • Mix and match more than 50 appliqué motifs to create your own William Morris-inspired designs • Make your masterpiece quickly with easy fusible appliqué




William Morris


Book Description

Winner of the Wolfson History Prize, the essential biography of the father of the Arts and Crafts movement. The author, Fiona MacCarthy, is the curator of the National Portrait Gallery's 2014-15 exhibition Anarchy and Beauty: William Morris and His Legacy.'One of the finest biographies ever published in this country' A. S. Byatt Since his death in 1896, William Morris has come to be regarded as one of the giants of the Victorian era. But his genius was so many-sided and so profound that its full extent has rarely been grasped. Many people may find it hard to believe that the greatest English designer of his time, possibly of all time, could also be internationally renowned as a founder of the socialist movement, and could have been ranked as a poet together with Tennyson and Browning.With penetrating insight, Fiona MacCarthy has managed to encompass all the different facets of Morris's complex character, shedding light on his immense creative powers as artist and designer of furniture, fabrics, wallpaper, stained glass, tapestry and books, and as a poet, novelist and translator; his psychology and his emotional life; his frenetic activities as polemicist and reformer; and his remarkable circle of friends, literary, artistic and political, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. Fiona MacCarthy's skilful drawing together of these disparate elements makes for a comprehensive and compelling biography.




William Morris


Book Description

Blackthorn, on the lined notebook of the set, was designed by John Henry Dearle and printed by Jeffrey & Co. as a wallpaper sample for Morris & Co. in 1892. Dearle also designed the Golden Lily wallpaper pattern, 1880-1917, used for the continental grid style journal, and Seaweed, from the 1890s, used for the blank paper notebook. All three wallpaper samples are in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.




William Morris


Book Description

Marking the 125th anniversary of William Morris’s death, this is the most wide-ranging illustrated book about Morris ever published. William Morris’s interests were wide-ranging: he was a poet, writer, political and social activist, conservationist, and businessman, as well as a brilliant and original designer and manufacturer. This book explores the balance between Morris’s various spheres of activity, places his art in the context of its time, and examines his ongoing and far-reaching legacy. A pioneer of the Arts & Crafts Movement, William Morris (1834–1896) is one of the most influential designers of all time. Morris turned the tide of Victorian England against an increasingly industrialized manufacturing process toward a rediscovered respect for the skill of the maker. Morris’s whole approach still resonates today, and his designs are popular and much admired. Published to mark the 125th anniversary of Morris’s death, this book includes contributions from a wide range of Morris experts, with chapters on painting, church decoration and stained glass, interior decoration, furniture, tiles and tableware, wallpaper, textiles, calligraphy, and publishing. Additional materials include a contextualized chronology of Morris’s life and a list of public collections around the world where examples of Morris’s work may be seen today. This study is a wide- ranging, fully illustrated exploration of a great thinker and artist, and essential reading for anyone interested in the history of design.




Seven Flowers


Book Description

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE GARDEN MEDIA AWARDS, INSPIRATIONAL BOOK OF THE YEAR** The lotus, lily, sunflower, opium poppy, rose, tulip and orchid. Seven flowers: seven stories full of surprise and secrets. Where and when did these flowers originate? What is the nature of their power and how was it acquired? What use has been made of them in gardens, literature and art? These are both histories and detective stories, full of incident, unexpected revelations, and irony. The opium poppy, for example, returned to haunt its progenitors in the West; and while Confucius saw virtue and modesty in his native orchids, the ancient Greeks saw only sex. These are flowers of life and death; of purity and passion; of greed, envy and virtue; of hope and consolation; of the beauty that drives men wild. All seven demonstrate the enduring ability of flowers to speak metaphorically - if we could only decode what they have to say.




The Kelmscott Chaucer


Book Description

The Kelmscott Chaucer is the most memorable and beautiful edition of the complete works of the first great English poet. Next to The Gutenberg Bible, it is considered the outstanding typographic achievement of all time. There are 87 full-page illustrations by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, and the borders, decorations and initials are drawn byWilliam Morris himself. Only 425 copies of this magnificent work were produced in 1896, and this beautiful monochrome facsimile, slightly smaller than the original, makes this glorious book available to all. A fascinating Introduction by Nicholas Barker places the book and its importance in context. The main text is followed by a black and white facsimile of ANoteby William Morris on his Aims in Founding the Kelmscott Press, together with a Short History of the Press by S C Cockerell.




The Scandinavian Home


Book Description

Discover classic and contemporary Scandinavian style with specially commissioned photography of homes in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Discover classic and contemporary Scandinavian style with specially commissioned photography of homes in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Scandinavia is famous for its distinctive style: homes are pared-back and simple, and form and function are combined to create aesthetically pleasing and practical interiors. Scandinavians are inspired by light, having an abundance of it in summer but so little of it in winter, and house designs tend to maximize the amount of natural light that enters the home, and allow the inhabitants to make the most of outdoor life during the summer. Similarly, nature and the weather are major influences: homes are made warm and cozy for the freezing winter months—not just literally with log burners, but also through incorporating wood and natural materials. Here Niki Brantmark, owner of the interior design blog My Scandinavian Home, presents a wide-ranging collection of these beautiful homes and explores how the Scandinavian lifestyle is reflected in them all. The first chapter, Urban Living, features styles ranging from minimalist to bohemian, and pale palettes to dramatic dark colors. By contrast, the Country Homes tend to have a softer, calmer feel, through color and textiles, in line with a slower pace of life. Finally, the spectacular Rural Retreats include a mountain cabin, beach house, and rustic summer cottage, and demonstrate how having somewhere to escape to is so important to many Scandinavians. This collection of stunning interiors will put Scandi style within every reader’s reach.




The Flowers of William Morris


Book Description

This title takes a comprehensive look at Morris's gardens and flowers, setting out to shed new light on the life and work of this passionate yet practical individual. It looks at his childhood, his student days at Oxford before turning to his own homes and gardens such as Red House and the Abbey Works at Merton. Morris's own words and those of his daughter May show his very personal approach to flowers and gardens and how his ideas anticipated the theories of William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll.