William Morris Society Activities at the MLA Annual Convention27–30 December in Philadelphia

This year the Modern Language Association's annual convention—a major happening in the wold of academic literary studies and college and university hiring—will take place 27–30 December in Philadelphia. As an official allied organization of the MLA, the William Morris Society has the privilege of sponsoring two sessions of scholarly papers at the convention. The topic of the first session is "Musical Pre-Raphaelitism: Defining the Area"; the second focuses on "William Morris's Later Friends and Associates." Attendance is restricted to those who register for the convention or who are members of the Society. Interested members of the public are, however, welcome to join us (space permitting) at two other activities, a special visit to the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, a research and lending library located in a nineteenth-century building, and the Society's annual meeting/dinner which follows. Members and non-members must rsvp by 24 December to Mark Samuels Lasner, (302) 831-3250.

For more information click here.

"Ernest Gimson and the Inspiration of William Morris" Lecutre in New York 10 December

"Ernest Gimson and the Inspiration of William Morris"
Mary Greensted

This talk will look at the links between William Morris and the Gimson family from the 1880s. The direct influence of Morris, father-figure of the Arts and Crafts movement and its impact on the ideas and work of Ernest Gimson, one of the most important British designers of the turn of the century, will be illustrated with examples of the latter's work in furniture, metalwork, embroideries, plasterwork and architecture.

Mary Greensted is a curator, lecturer, and writer, who was for many years responsible for Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum's nationally important Arts and Crafts movement collection. A trustee of the Court Barn Museum, Chipping Campden, and the chairperson of the Gloucestershire Guild of Craftsmen, she is the author of numerous books, including Craft and Design: Ernest Gimson and the Arts and Crafts Movement and The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Cotswolds, along with three catalogues on Cheltenham's Arts and Crafts collections (as joint author/editor). Her most recent publication was An Anthology of the Arts and Crafts Movement, published by Lund Humphries in 2005. She is currently a recipient of a Leventis studentship for researching links between Greece and the Arts and Crafts movement at Birmingham University.

Thursday, 10 December 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) 831-3250.

Christmas Craft Fair, 12 and 13 December at Kelmscott House

Don’t miss the William Morris Society’s first Christmas Craft Fair in the newly refurbished Coach House at Kelmscott House Museum! Celebrate the festive season with a mince pie and glass of wine in the unique setting of the historic Coach House at William Morris's magical riverside home in Hammersmith as you browse for those extra special gifts designed and made by quality craftspeople. Come and see designer crafts people at work as well as a range of beautiful handcrafted gifts for sale including ceramics, jewellery, stone carving, fabric bags, scarves, Christmas tree angels, embroidered and woollen items, Christmas cards, small garden creations and soft furnishings at the home of the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Christmas Craft Fair
Saturday, 12 and Sunday, 13 December 2009
11 a. m. to 5.30 p.m.
The Coach House
Kelmscott House Museum
26 Upper Mall
Hammersmith
London W6 9TA UK
020 8741 3735
william.morris@care4free.net

New Book The History of Kelmscott House by Helen Elletson published by the William Morris Society

The William Morris Society has just published The History of Kelmscott House by Helen Elletson. This new book by the cuator of the William Morris Society and Kelmscott House Museum, tells the story of the "most beautiful house in London" in Hammersmith which Morris bought in 1879. While living there he set up the Kelmscott Press, established the Hammersmith branch of the Socialist League (in the Coach House, where speakers included George Bernard Shaw and W. B. Yeats), and continued his innovations in design, printing and dyeing techniques. This is the first fully-illustrated book about this most magical of Morris’s homes. Helen Elletson’s carefully researched and absorbing text, complemented by beatiful images—photographs and original prints, most in color—faithfully conveys the atmosphere of Kelmscott House, which Morris and his family welcomed some of the most influential minds of the late-Victorian period. The book also examines the history and the occupants of the house before and after Morris.

An exceptional value at only £5, due to generous sponsorship and the wish of the William Morris Society to make it affordable, The History of Kelmscott House is a must-have book for anyone interested in Morris and his circle.

64 pp., 34 illus., most in color. November 2009

£5 per copy, plus £1 packing and postage (in the UK)
$15 per copy, plus $5 package and postage (in the US)
Enquire for shipping costs to rest of world

Order from:

William Morris Society
Kelmscott House
26 Upper Mall
Hammersmith
London W6 9TA UK
020 8741 3735
william.morris@care4free.net

Kelmscott Bookshop
32 West 25th St.
Baltimore, MD 21218
(410) 235-6810
info@kelmscottbookshop.com

The Days of Creation Lecture 18 November at Harvard

On Wednesday, 18 November, Miriam Stewart, assistant curator, Department of Drawings, Harvard Art Museums, will speak on The Days of Creation - In-Sight: Looking Deeper and Differently at Harvard's Sackler Museum. When Henry James saw Edward Burne-Jones's watercolor series The Days of Creation exhibited in 1877, he noted the artist's "imagination, his fertility of invention, his exquisiteness of work, his remarkable gifts as a colourist." Photographic replicas (called platinotypes) of The Days of Creation were available starting in the 1870s. Oscar Wilde had a set of platinotypes in his rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford. This splendid series in the Harvard Art Museum's collection invites close examination of painting materials, iconography, collecting, and reproduction. Tickets $18 (members of Harvard Art Museum $12, students with valid ID $8). Space is limited, and registration is strongly encouraged.

Wednesday, 18 November 2009

6.30 p. m.

Arthur M. Sackler Museum Lecture Hall

485 Broadway

Cambridge, MA

To register, call (617) 495-0534.

The Kelmsoctt Chaucer in Miniature

The Kelmscott Chaucer, the masterpiece of William Morris's Kelmscott Press, published a few months before Morris's death in 1896, was described by its illustrator, Edward Burne-Jones, as a "pocket cathedral." How big a pocket might hold the original (a folio) is hard to imagine but we have received word that there is a version which will fit into a reticule—and leave room to spare. In a world where Morris products of all sorts abound, B. B. Miniatures, of South Africa, has produced one of the smallest--and oddest, an "open book" version of the Chaucer measuring ca. 1.5 in. wide and 1.25 in. wide. Described as being "bound" (quotation marks ours) in leather, the volume joins the maker's little library suitable for a dolls' house. Other titles available include the Gutenberg Bible, Mrs. Beeton, various medieval manuscripts, and albums kept by a naturalist and a stamp collector. The charm of the miniature Chaucer is slightly lessened when one learns that because of the reduction, the open pages can't be read. But then critics of the real Chaucer have, on occasion, said the same thing. For more information go the B. B. Miniatures web site.

(Thanks for Matthew Young for the photograph.)

Edward Burne-Jones: The Earthly Paradise at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart has on through 7 February 2010 an exhibition of Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), It's a major show, but not, as claimed, the first on this artist’s work ever to be presented in Germany. Some idea of the content and theme can be found in the web announcement:

Myths, legends and sagas come to life in his splendid narrative cycles which, as the focus of the show, will lure visitors into magical worlds. The tale of Sleeping Beauty, the saga of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the myth of the demigod Perseus who beheaded the horrible Gorgon Medusa and liberated Princess Andromeda from the clutches of a sea monster: it was not only in large-scale paintings and tapestries that Burne-Jones depicted these and other stories. Literary motifs of this kind also figure in his designs for stained-glass windows, ceramic tiles, furniture, book illustrations and other three-dimensional and textile works. Each of the new exhibition rooms on the ground floor of the Old Staatsgalerie will be devoted to a different sphere of his narrative universe.

As they note, "Burne-Jones shared his appreciation of the applied arts as an agent unifying art and life with William Morris, one of the fathers of modern design. Not only were the two men close friends throughout their lives; they also worked side by side at Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., founded in 1861." The title of the exhibition comes, of course, from Morris's epic poem, The Earthly Paradise (1868–1870), from which Burne-Jones derived inspiration for his narrative cycles

The exhibition is "being realized under the sponsorship of the British ambassador to Germany, Sir Michael Arthur." It will be on view at the Kunstmuseum Bern from 19 March to 25 July 2010.