Morris & Co.

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (1861–1875) was a furnishings and decorative arts manufacturer and retailer founded by the artist and designer William Morris with friends from the Pre-Raphaelites. With its successor Morris & Co. (1875–1940) the firm's medieval-inspired aesthetic and respect for hand-craftsmanship and traditional textile arts had a profound influence on the decoration of churches and houses into the early 20th century.

Although its most influential period was during the flourishing of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the 1880s and 1890s, Morris & Co. remained in operation in a limited fashion from World War I until its closure in 1940. The firm's designs are still sold today under licences given to Sanderson & Sons, part of the Walker Greenbank wallpaper and fabrics business (which owns the "Morris & Co." brand,[1]) and to Liberty of London.

Early years

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., "Fine Art Workmen in Painting, Carving, Furniture and the Metals", was jointly created by Morris, Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Charles Faulkner, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, P. P. Marshall, and Philip Webb in 1861 to create and sell medieval-inspired, handcrafted items for the home.[2] The prospectus set forth that the firm would undertake carving, stained glass, metal-work, paper-hangings, chintzes (printed fabrics), and carpets.[3] The first headquarters of the firm were at 8 Red Lion Square in London.[3]

The work shown by the firm at the 1862 International Exhibition attracted much notice, and within a few years it was flourishing. In the autumn of 1864, a severe illness obliged Morris to choose between giving up his home at Red House in Kent and giving up his work in London. With great reluctance he gave up Red House, and in 1865 established himself under the same roof with his workshops, which by then had relocated to larger premises in Queen Square,

Reorganization and expansion

In August 1874, Morris determined to restructure the partnership, generating a dispute with Marshall, Rossetti, and Madox Brown over the return on their shares. The company was dissolved and reorganized under Morris's sole ownership as Morris & Co. on 31 March 1875.[4]

During these years, Morris took up the practical art of dyeing as a necessary adjunct of his manufacturing business. He spent much of his time at the Staffordshire dye works of Thomas Wardle, mastering the processes of that art and making experiments in the revival of old or discovery of new methods. One result of these experiments was to reinstate indigo dyeing as a practical industry, and generally to renew the use of those vegetable dyes, like madder, which had been driven almost out of use by the anilines.

Dyeing of wools, silks, and cottons was the necessary preliminary to what he had much at heart, the production of woven and printed fabrics of the highest excellence; and the period of incessant work at the dye-vat (1875–76) was followed by a period during which he was absorbed in the production of textiles (1877–78), and more especially in the revival of carpet-weaving as a fine art.[2][5]

Important commissions

The firm's first commissionsstained glass and decorative schemes for St Michael's Church, Brighton, All Saints Church, Selsley, and Jesus Chapel, Cambridgecame from the architect G F Bodley in the early 1860s.[10] Following this, two significant secular commissions helped to establish the firm's reputation in the late 1860s: a royal project at St. James's Palace and the "green dining room" at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) of 1867. The green dining room (preserved as the Morris Room at the V&A) featured stained glass windows and panel figures by Burne-Jones, panels with branches of fruit and flowers by Morris, and olive branches and a frieze by Philip Webb. The St. James's commission comprised decorative schemes for the Armoury and the Tapestry Room, and included panels of stylized floral patterns painted on ceilings, cornices, dadoes, windows, and doors.[11]

In 1871, Morris & Co. were responsible for the windows at All Saints church in the village of Wilden near to Stourport-on-Severn. They were designed by Burne-Jones for Alfred Baldwin, his wife's brother-in-law.

Standen near East Grinstead, West Sussex, was designed between 1892 and 1894 by Philip Webb for a prosperous

Last stages

As Morris pursued other interests, notably socialism and the Kelmscott Press, day-to-day work at the firm was delegated. Morris's daughter May became the director of the embroidery department in 1885, when she was in her early twenties. Dearle, who had begun designing repeating patterns for wallpapers and textiles in the late 1880s,[15] was head designer for the firm by 1890, handling interior design commissions and supervising the tapestry, weaving, and fabric-printing departments at Merton Abbey.[16]

Dearle's contributions to textile design were long overshadowed by Morris. Dearle exhibited his designs under the Morris name rather than his own in the Arts and Crafts Exhibitions and the major Morris retrospective of 1899,.[17][18] Even today many Dearle designs, and others created by designers working at the firm, May Morris and Kathleen Kersey among them, are popularly offered as "William Morris" patterns.

Offerings

See also

• Art needlework
• British and Irish stained glass (1811–1918)
• Decorative Designers
• May Morris
• Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
• Stained glass
• Victorian Era
• William Morris wallpaper designs

External links

• Morris & Co. by David Cody, at the Victorian Web
• Morris & Co. windows in Cumbria and New York
• The Vanderpoel Window in Saugerties, New York
• Morris & Co. collection at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
• Edward Burne-Jones, Victorian artist-dreamer, full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art