World's second biggest collection of works by (William) Morris & Co. at the Art Gallery of South Australia
Morris and Co. tapestries, including Hanging (at left), designed by May Morris and emboidered by Mary Isobel Barr Smith (1890s) and The Adoration of the Magi (1900-02), designed 1887) by Edward Burne-Jones and John Henry Dearle, are among strong features of the reimagined Gallery 18 display at the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Image by Saul Steed, courtesy Art Gallery of South Australia
The Art Gallery of South Australia’s Morris & Co. display showcases the world’s second largest collection, after the Victoria and Albert Gallery in London, of the iconic works, including furniture, ceramics and textiles, inspired by William Morris.
Morris, one of the greatest and most prolific pattern designers of all time, was a 19th Century founder of Morris & Co. in England as decorative arts manufacturer and a retailer famous for its focus on handmade craftsmanship and making outstanding carpets, wallpapers, tapestries, ceramics, embroideries, furniture and textiles.
The abundance material for Art Gallery of South Australia display was due to the 279 works inherited from the progressive taste of Adelaide’s wealthy Barr-Smith family whose members extensively furnished seven large houses with Morris & Co. goods from 1884 to 1929. The Barr-Smith family was possibly Morris & Co.’s major international client. Robert Barr Smith had his own 152-page Morris & Co. wallpaper sample book.
In 1989, Christopher Menz, the Art Gallery of South Australia’s curator of European and Australian decorative arts, was given a brief to collect and preserve as much of the family’s Morris & Co. material as possible. Since then, works from local sources, and many more from London were acquired by the gallery including “Trellis”, Morris’s first wallpaper design of 1864.
The Art Gallery of South Australia display featured designs by May Morris, daughter of William Morris, who was one of the leading female contributors to the Arts and Crafts Movement. She was an innovative designer of embroidery, wallpaper and jewellery, and ran the embroidery department of Morris & Co. as well as being a founder of the Women’s Guild of Arts in 1907.
Among highlights of the display noted by Michele Hill, an Adelaide William Morris expert, are an ornate Persian brocatel silk-covered chair by John Henry Dearle, the silk oak-table cover and reproduction “Honeysuckle and tulip” wallpaper designed by William Morris, the Tennyson portrait by George Frederick Watts, a chair by William Holman Hunt, a fireplace by Charles Voysey and the Acanthus Portiere embroidery by John Henry Dearle
