"The Art of the Book": Design and Craft in 19th-century Britain and 21st-century Canada

This year's William Morris Society of Canada symposium, "The Art of the Book: Design and Craft in 19th-century Britain and 21st-century Canada, " will be held on Saturday, 21 March, at University College, University of Toronto. In keeping with Morris’s own belief that books are the product of diverse talents working in cooperation, our 2009 symposium brings together printers, publishers, artists, and scholars to discuss the material form of the book as it is, has been, and might be. In the morning, William Whitla of York University will speak on the relationship between Morris’s calligraphy, book collecting, and printing practices, followed by William Rueter describing the work of his own Aliquando Press and its recent edition of the diaries of the artist and bookbinder T. J. Cobden-Sanderson. The afternoon will feature presentations on the past, present, and future of printing and book design. Speakers include Don Taylor, bookbinder and artist working in Toronto since 1980; and Reg Beatty, bookbinder, book artist, and teacher at York University and the Ontario College of Art and Design.

Immediately following the symposium, a party in University College’s Croft Chapter House will celebrate William Morris’s 175th birthday.

Saturday, 21 March 2009
9.30 a. m. to 4 p. m.
Room 179
University College
University of Toronto

Registration (includes lunch):
Paid in Advance, before March 14: $40 (members); $50 (non-members); $20 (students)
Paid at the Door: $50 (members): $60 (non-members); $30 (students)

Please note “pre-registration” is strongly recommended because “At he Door” registration may be very limited.

Tennyson Bicentenary

It does seem remarkable that 2009 marks the bicentenary of Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allan Poe, and Alfred Tennyson. (Darwin and Lincoln were, in fact, born on the same day.) Although an exhibition last year sought to explore the ties between Darwin and William Morris, and while Morris's politics and ideals might owe something to Lincoln's, the real connection—for Morrisians at least—is with Tennyson. William Morris was a reader and admirer of the poet laureate; his own early poems owed much to Tennyson in theme and manner; in due course the two men became acquainted; finally, Tennyson's Maud was reprinted by the Kelmscott Press in 1893.

There are many events scheudled to mark the Tennyson anniversary, and a full schedule will be found on a site maintained by the Lincolnshire County Council. Two of particular interest are a lecture, on "Morris and Tennyson," by Peter Faulkner, to be given at Kelmscott House in Saturday, 3 March (see 2009 William Morris Events in the UK for details) and an exhibition, Tennyson Transformed, taking place 30 May - 31 August at The Collection, in Lincoln. Alfred Tennyson's influence on Victorian culture was not just literary: he inspired an extraordinary range of artists and designers. This major exhibition at The Collection will assemble vivid examples of artistic responses to Tennyson's poetry and person by some of the best known artists of the period. Unique objects from Lincoln's Tennyson Research Centre will be displayed alongside loans from major national collections.

Other events include an International conference to be held at Cambridge, concerts, a country dance program, and lectures at various locations throughout Britain. One thing that caught our eye is The Lady of Shalott Film, produced by WAG, a group which seems to have expanded an interest in local archeology into movie-making, What is striking about the film is how clearly its visual look is influenced by spefic Pre-Raphaleite paintings—the "teaser" trailers include the death scene on the boat straight out of J. W. Waterhouse. To see for yourelf go to www.theladyofshalott.co.uk.

"Why Victorian Art?" Symposium at CUNY, 6 February

A symposium, open to the public, organized by the Department of Art History,
the City University of New York, Graduate Center.

Friday, 6 February 2009
9 a. m. to 5 p. m.
Martin E. Segal Theatre, Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY

In American academia, British Victorian art has been perceived pejoratively as regressive relative to French art's trajectory toward modernism. In sharp contrast, English departments in the United States have encouraged the study of British Victorian literature since it was first set down on paper, with postmodern scholars championing Victorian literature's handling of issues from colonialism and racism to aspects of gender and sexual identities. The Victorians were the dominant imperial power and leaders of the industrial world at the dawn of the twentieth century, but the study of Victorian visual art and culture is still largely looked upon unfavorably in the United States, with American museums only rarely mounting exhibitions about Victorian art. Recently, this trend has been slowly changing. More students are pursuing dissertation topics in the areas of British Victorian painting, sculpture, architecture, and photography. Furthermore, conferences such as the 2008 annual meeting of NAVSA acknowledge the rising importance of Victorian art, including interdisciplinary panel sessions on topics such as sculpture and global contexts, queer visualities, and Darwinism and the arts. "Why Victorian Art?" will bring together scholars to address two critical issues: why the study of Victorian art has been overlooked in the U.S., and how a closer examination of Victorian art can provide new or alternative perspectives in the study of nineteenth-century art and culture.

For more information download the symposium announcement.

"Vernon Lushington: Pre-Raphaltie" Lecture in New York on 12 March

Although he was a friend and colleague to many famous artists, authors, and activists, the lawyer and positivist Vernon Lushington (1832–1912) remains virtually unknown today. In “Vernon Lushington: Pre-Raphaelite, Friend of William Morris, and Father of ‘Mrs. Dalloway,’” historian David Taylor will draw upon previously unavailable materials from the Lushington archive to shed light on the interesting and influential figure who arranged the first meeting between Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti and who visited with William and Jane Morris at Kelmscott Manor. Taylor will also discuss the connection between the Lushingtons and the Stephen family. After the death of Mrs. Lushington, Vernon's three daughters (above) were taken under the wing of Julia Stephen, wife of Leslie Stephen and mother of Virginia Woolf. Vernon Lushington’s eldest daughter, Kitty, became the model for the title character of Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925). The Lushingtons also spent summers with the Stephen family at Talland House in Cornwall, which provided the setting for the Ramseys’ summer home in Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927). Letters in the archive offer insight into Woolf’s fiction.David Taylor is a historian, writer, and lecturer living in Cobham, Surrey.

A Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, Taylor has published several works on the history of Cobham and presented lectures to the Virginia Woolf Society, the Pre-Raphaelite Society, and the William Morris Society. Vernon Lushington is the subject of Taylor’s doctoral research.

Thursday, 12 March 2009
6 p. m., reception to follow
The Grolier Club
47 East 60th Street
New York, NY

Sponsored by the William Morris Society in the United States, the American Friends of Arts and Crafts in Chipping Campden, the Grolier Club, the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, and the Victorian Society in America.

Tickets: $12 reduced rate for members of the Society and the other sponsoring organizations; $18 for others.

For more details and to purchase a ticket, click here.

Contact Mark Samuels Lasner, (302) 83-3250.

Virginia Woolf's Freshwater to be Presented in New York on 19 November

On Wednesday, 19 November, the William Morris Society will join with other groups to hold the first American peformance of Virginia Woolf’s comedy, Freshwater, in New York. The play, a hilarious send-up of Woolf’s great-aunt, the famed photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, and her friends poet Alfred Tennyson, painter G. F. Watts, and actress Ellen Terry, was written for a private Bloomsbury theaterical party in 1931. It is presented in conjunction with the Grolier Club’s exhibition, This Perpetual Fight: Love and Loss in Virginia Woolf’s Intimate Circle (17 September–22 November 2008).

This reading is sponsored by the William Morris Society in the United States, the Grolier Club, American Friends of Arts and Crafts in Chipping Campden, the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, and the Victorian Society in America.

Arthur Giron, the director, is a playwright and former head of the Graduate Playwriting Program at Carnegie Mellon University. A founding member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, the nation’s foremost play development organization, Giron had been called "One of our best contemporary dramatists" by critic Rosette La Mont. His latest play Emilie’s Voltaire won the Galileo Prize and will open in New York in 2009. The cast includes Liza Vann as Julia Margaret Cameron. A recipient of the Clarence Ross Fellowship from the American Theatre Wing, she has performed extensively in regional theatre. Her latest work is Good Ol’ Girls, which airs on PBS later this year.

This event is now sold out.

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

6 p. m.
The Grolier Club
47 East 60th Street
New York, NY

Click here for more information.

William Morris Society Website Updated

We recently updated the William Morris Society website. You will find lists of Society events in the UK and US through the end of the year, the Summer 2008 William Morris Society in the US newsletter, corrected visitor information for Kelmscott Manor and Kelmscott House, and--perhaps most important--the full text of the Journal of William Morris Studies from 1963 through 2000. Soon to come: direct online ordering for publications, updated lists of Morris-related products and services, and improved images.

Eminent Pre-Raphaelites Symposium at Birmingham, 21 June

This is late notice, but we have just learned of an event of outstanding interest. "Eminent Pre-Raphaleites: Rosseti, Holman Hunt, Millais, and Ruskin" a symposium sponsored by the Pre-Raphaelite Society and the School of Humanities, University of Birmingham, will take place on Saturday, 21 June, 9.30 a.m. - 5 p. m., at the Library Theatre, Birmingham Central Library. The speakers include Judith Bronkhurst, Stephen Wildman, Christopher Newall, Paul Barlow, and Simon Cooke. For more detials go the Pre-Raphaleite Society website, where a pdf with full detials and registration form may be downloaded.