William Morris, who died in 1896, is hailed as an influence on everyone from the Pre-Raphaelites to Terence Conran. Photo: National Portrait Gallery/PA WireErotic gardening equipment will go on show alongside banners, books and paintings in a new exhibition dedicated to artist and designer William Morris.
The show at the National Portrait Gallery in central London will examine Morris’s work as part of the English Arts and Crafts movement and his fervent socialist beliefs. Morris, who died in 1896, is hailed as aninfluence on everyone from the Pre-Raphaelites to Terence Conran.
The exhibition’s curator Fiona MacCarthy, who wrote an award-winning biography of Morris, said: “Now in the 21st century our art and design culture is widespread. But its global sophistication brings new anxieties.
“We find ourselves returning to many of Morris’s pre-occupations with craft skills and the environment, with local sourcing, with vernacular traditions, with art as a vital force within society, binding together people of varying backgrounds and nationalities.
“This exhibition, as I see it, will not only explore what William Morris’s vision was but will suggest ways in which his radical thinking still affects the way we live our lives.”
Exhibits include Morris’s diary and his gold-tooled hand-bound copy of Karl Marx’s Capital as well as work by artists whom he influenced, including sculptor Eric Gill whose garden roller, Adam and Eve, shows the biblical couple locked in an embrace.
Anarchy and Beauty: William Morris and His Legacy 1860-1960 runs from October to January.