“William Morris’ Earthly Paradise: Precursor to the Private Press Movement”

The exhibition, “William Morris’ Earthly Paradise: Precursor to the Private Press Movement,” will open at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Art History Gallery 8 March 2012.  This exhibition, curated by Leslie Harwood, a MA candidate at the University, will focus on William Morris’s and Edward Burne-Jones’s Earthly Paradise project in relation to the Kelmscott Press, founded nearly thirty years after the Earthly Paradise project was initiated, in order to prove that the failure of the earlier project to be the instigator in the founding of the Kelmscott Press.

This exhibition will feature several editions of Morris’s Earthly Paradise, the 1868

mass produced edition featuring only one of Burne-Jones’s woodcuts, the 1896 Kelmscott Press edition, and Arthur Richard Dufty’s 1974 reproduction of the “Cupid and Psyche” series, which was printed with Burne-Jones’s original wood blocks. Dufty’s reproduction offers his own interpretation of how Morris intended to design The Earthly Paradise. The exhibition will also feature several books printed at the Kelmscott Press such as William Morris’s News From Nowhere and Well at the World’s End.

Alongside Morris’ books from the Kelmscott Press, several private presses influenced by the press at Kelmscott will be featured, including the Vale Press, Essex House Press, and Golden Cockerel Press, all in London. There will also be two American private presses, the Philosophers Press and the Elston Press. The aims of the exhibition are to discuss Morris’s and Burne-Jones’s intentions, the reasons why they founded the Kelmscott Press, and how the aforementioned private presses continued the legacy of Morris’s ideals in presenting the book as a quality, aesthetically pleasing everyday object.

A catalogue for the exhibition written by Ms. Harwood is available for purchase; for details please contact leslie.harwood@gmail.com.

The William Morris Society-US announces the awarding of 2012 Fellowships

The 2012 William Morris Society Fellowship was awarded to Leslie Harwood, a MA candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Art History and Museum Studies. The award will help fund the installation of Ms. Harwood’s thesis exhibition entitled “William Morris’ Earthly Paradise: Precursor to the Private Press Movement” at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Art History Gallery, opening 8 March 2012.  The award will also be applied towards the printing of a thesis exhibition catalog offered to all of the visitors of the gallery free of charge. The catalogs, as well as the exhibition itself, will educate the UW-Milwaukee community and the greater public about William Morris’s profound impact on the Kelmscott Press and the press’s greater influence on the history of the Private Press Movement. For more information on the exhibition, see additional blog postings.

The 2012 Joseph R. Dunlap Memorial Fellowship was awarded to Kyle Stoneman, a PhD candidate at Churchill College, Cambridge. Mr. Stoneman will be investigating the artistic contributions of Evelyn Waugh, including his art criticism, illustrations, photography, and woodcuts, and how this work embraces William Morris’s theories. Waugh’s criticism of modern society’s social and aesthetic standards all resonate with the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Museo de Arte de Ponce announces symposium on “Treasures of the Collection in Context: The Pre-Raphaelites”

In an unprecedented event for Puerto Rico, on Saturday, 4 February 2012, Museo de Arte de Ponce will host an international symposium titled “Treasures of the Collection in Context: The Pre-Raphaelites in the Museo de Arte de Ponce Collection,” Art Daily reports. From 10 am to 5 pm, renowned specialists in art history and Victorian literature will meet in this south-coast Puerto Rico city to discuss the artists and works contained in the museum’s world-famed collection. This conference represents the most important academic event ever held on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in Puerto Rico. For more information, http://repeatingislands.com/2011/12/31/museo-de-arte-de-ponce-announces-symposium-on-treasures-of-the-collection-in-context-the-pre-raphaelites/

 Edward Coley Burne-Jones, The Sleeping Beauty from the small Briar Rose series. Oil on canvas, 60 x 115 cm. Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte de Ponce.

Talk by David Mabb at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, 12 January 2012

"On the Passage of a Few Patterns through a Rather Brief Moment in  

Time: David Mabb’s Appropriations of William Morris 1999-2011"

William Morris thought that interior design had a fundamental role to  play in the transformation of everyday life. This essentially  political motivation - a commitment to the radical potential of design  - is behind much of his work as a designer and craftsman and the setting up of Morris &  Co. Morris's designs are highly schematized  representations of nature, where it is always summer and never winter;  the plants are always in leaf, often flowering, with their fruits available in abundance, ripe for picking, and with no human labor in sight. Mabb's paintings, photographs, textiles and videos, work with and against Morris's designs by contrasting them with the work of Malevich, the Russian Constructivists, modernist architecture, photographs of industry and recently images of slogans. These combinations produce unstable picture spaces that are never fixed, where a Morris pattern and the other image never merge or separate.

This lecture has been organised to accompany the exhibition William Morris: Story, Memory, Myth which is open until 29 January 2012 at Two Temple Place. The exhibition draws upon the remarkable collections of  

the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, which is closed for major refurbishment until July 2012. Organised in collaboration with The Courtauld Institute of Art, this exhibition is the first in the annual series of exhibitions by The Bulldog Trust which are intended to draw on and increase the visibility of collections across the country, and to provide opportunities for young and emerging curators.

Thursday, 12 January 2012
6 p.m.
Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre
The Courtauld Institute of Art
Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN UK

"Palaces of Art: Whistler and the Art Worlds of Aestheticism," symposium 27-28 October at the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

"Palaces of Art: Whistler and the Art Worlds of Aestheticism," a two-day symposium at the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, features presentations by international scholars consider how issues of patronage, collecting, display, and critical interpretation shaped the Aesthetic art movement, its theories and practices, and its reception in a global context. Through the introduction of new approaches to Aestheticism, scholars challenge conceptions about the place of James McNeill Whistler and his international circle of contemporaries within the Aesthetic movement.
This symposium honors the achievements of Professor Margaret MacDonald of the University of Glasgow. It is organized by the Lunder Consortium for Whistler Studies, a scholarly collaboration of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Colby College Museum of Art, and the University of Glasgow. It is the first in a series of conferences supporting the consortium’s mission of promoting innovative scholarship on the art of James McNeill Whistler and his international circle of contemporaries.
“Palaces of Art: Whistler and the Art Worlds of Aestheticism” is made possible by the generosity of the Lunder Foundation.
The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. The proceedings will be archived and available online for future reference.

Thursday and Friday, 27-28 October 2011
Meyer Auditorium
Freer Gallery of Art
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC

For more information, contact:

Margaret Laster
Fellow, Lunder Consortium for Whistler Studies
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
LasterM@si.edu

Image: Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen. James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903). Oil on wood panel, 1864. Gift of Charles Lang Freer, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, F1904.75a.

Update on the William Morris Gallery

An exciting new project will redisplay one of the world’s finest collections of William Morris artefacts.
The William Morris Gallery is the only public gallery devoted to Morris’s life, work and influence. Housed in Morris’s early home in Walthamstow, it holds an internationally significant collection of textiles, designs, wallpapers, furniture, ceramics and books associated with Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement. This exciting project will refurbish and extend the Gallery, transforming it into world-class cultural destination and a centre of excellence for the study of Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.
When the Gallery reopens in July 2012 in time for the Olympics, more of the outstanding collection will be on display and it will be reinterpreted to appeal to all ages and backgrounds. There will be a new learning centre, a research library and a temporary exhibition space, as well as a new website and an excellent tea room and shop.
Architect’s impression of the rear of the Gallery showing the new extension to the left.

Image: Pringle Richards Sharratt
Visitors will learn in the main displays about Morris’s early years in Oxford, his association with the Pre-Raphaelites and the foundation and enduring success of Morris & Co. Hands-on, interactive exhibits will invite people of all ages to explore how products were designed and made, emphasising Morris’s preference for traditional craft techniques. They will also find out about Morris’s career as a writer and campaigner and his lasting influence as father of the Arts and Crafts movement.
The permanent exhibitions will be complemented by an ambitious programme of temporary exhibitions exploring aspects of Morris’s legacy – both historically and in contemporary art and design. In addition, a radical programme of Activities and Events will engage a wider, more diverse audience, whilst an innovative Schools Programme will inspire the next generation of artists, designers and makers.
The Development Project has been made possible by a grant of £1.52 million by the Heritage Lottery fund matched with £1.5 million from the London Borough of Waltham Forest. Funding has also been secured from a number of trusts and foundations and the Friends of the William Morris Gallery. With just 12 months left to go until reopening, the Gallery team have £850,000 left to raise. To find out more, including how you can get involved, visit www.walthamforest.gov.uk/william-morris.

For further information please contact:

Vicky Carroll
Museum, Gallery and Archives Manager
Tel: (44) 020 8496 4390
Email: vicky.carroll@walthamforest.gov.uk
www.walthamforest.gov.uk/william-morris

"Searching for a Famous Book: A Census of the Kelmscott Chaucer" - presentation 29 Septmeber at the Library of Congress

On Thursday, 29 September, the Library of Congress will hold a special event, "Searching for a Famous Book: A Census of the Kelmscott Chaucer." This presentation, by William S. and Sylvia Holton Peterson, celebrates the publication of their new book, The Kelmscott Chaucer: A Census, from Oak Knoll Press (2011). Two of the Library of Congress's copies of the Kelmscott Chaucer will be on view for the occasion.

Co-sponsored by the Library of Congress, the American Printing History Association, Chesapeake Chapter, and the William Morris Society n the United States.

Thursday, 29 September 2011
4 p.m.
The Lessing J. Rosenwald Room (LJ205)
The Rare Book and Special Collections Division
2nd Floor, Jefferson Building
Library of Congress
Washington, DC

For further information, please contact The Division at 202-707-2025
Request ADA accommodation five business days in advance
Contact (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov

Visit the Kelmscott Chaucer blog: http://kelmscottchaucer.wordpress.com/.