Designs notes

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 2001 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

William Morris was among the galaxy of Renaissance men who revolutionized design in England during the nineteenth century. These men--Pugin, Dresser, and Godwin to name a few--wrote at length and lectured widely on subjects ranging from politics and social reform to interior design, literature, and history. In short, they plumbed the depths of the historical past in order to create something entirely new.

The chapter headings in the catalogue of the Morris exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1996 provide a synopsis of his myriad endeavors. Included are essays devoted to Morris the designer, writer, businessman, political activist, and conservationist. Then there are chapters that treat each aspect of his tangible legacy in the world of design: painting, church decoration and stained glass, domestic decoration, furniture, tiles and tableware, wallpaper, textiles, calligraphy, and printed books.

Morris noted with considerable understatement that "all the minor arts were in a state of complete degradation....in 1861 with the conceited courage of a young man I set myself to reforming all that and started a sort of firm for producing decorative articles." This was Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company (later renamed Morris and Company), which became an immediate success. The first offerings were glass tablewares, but in 1862 the firm introduced wallpapers that relied on flat patterns in highly saturated colors and motifs drawn almost entirely from the natural world. The wood-blocks necessary to print the wallpapers were cut by Barrett's, a family concern that has long specialized in this craft. The use of woodblocks and hand-printing was a revival of old methods, for by this point machine printing was in widespread use. The papers themselves were printed by Jeffrey and Company, but far from giving them free reign, Morris was a micromanager of the first order, making detailed notations on the margins o f his drawings and consulting the firm's craftsmen constantly. By the 1870s Morris's designs for wallpaper had matured into the wonderfully dense patterns of flowers, plants, and birds that we associate with his best work. By the end of the decade the firm offered 32 patterns in a total of 125 colorways and Morris began to step back. Indeed, by this point some of the new patterns were the creations of Kate Faulkner.

Printed and woven textiles in similar patterns to those used for the wallpapers were in production in the late 1860s. Morris first selected the firm of Thomas Clarkson of Bannister Hall in Lancashire to carry out the work. But in 1875, dissatisfied with Clarkson's colors, he approached Thomas Wardle, who had recently established the Hencroft Printworks in Leek, Staffordshire, and who printed all of Morris's textiles between that year and 1878.

In 1927 the firm of Arthur Sanderson and Sons purchased Jeffrey and Company, and in 1940 they bought Morris and Company. With this latter transaction Sanderson took ownership of the contents of the firm's showroom among which were the original pearwood wallpaper printing blocks, document designs, and Morris's logbooks. The firm has recently added reproductions of five Morris designs for wallpapers and textiles (in a number of colorways) to more than one hundred that it currently makes available. Its headquarters are in England, but Sanderson has showrooms throughout the United States. These can be located by contacting their New York showroom at 212-319-7220 or by fax at 212-593-6184.