May Morris and the Post-Pre-Raphaelites

May Morris, the Reading Bayeux, and the Post-Pre-Raphaelites 
Two Exhibitions on the Wirral, and an Arts and Crafts Embroidery 
Monday, 29 June at 6pm. 

For the past two years I have lived on the Wirral, half-way between two very different cities, Liverpool and Chester. But even here we are lucky to have not one, but two art galleries more or less on our door step. The Lady Lever is just round the corner from me, about 15 minutes walk, but if I drive, in the same time I can get to the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum. By some coincidence (and, call me cynical, but I doubt it was planned), both are currently hosting exhibitions which relate to artistic developments influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood – work by the Post-Pre-Raphaelites, to coin a term.

Until 1 November, the Lady Lever Art Gallery, in Port Sunlight, has an exhibition entitled May Morris: Crafting a Legacy. As their website says, ‘In 1885, aged just 23, she became the manager of Morris & Co’s embroidery department’. Jobs for the girls, you might think, given that her Dad was the boss, but, as the exhibition shows, she was one of the most talented designers of the Arts and Crafts movement, moving embroidery away from the current trend, Berlin Woolwork, which, after the Great Exhibition of 1851, became the go-to pass-time for middle class Victorian women. 

May’s father, William Morris, had been brought into the circle of the Pre-Raphaelites by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the late 1850s, and, as his interests developed more towards interior design, he sought out softer, more ‘authentic’ dyes than the virulently coloured (as he saw it) aniline dyes which had been discovered at exactly the same time (1856), and which, by the 1860s, were routinely used in Berlin Woolwork. As it happened, Morris’s business manager’s brother-in-law was the most successful dyer in the country: Thomas Wardle. Inevitably Wardle’s wife Elizabeth got to know Morris – and he admired her embroidery. It was she who led the project to create the replica of the Bayeux Tapestry now in Reading Museum, which I have recently taken several groups to see. It was when I finally got to see examples of Berlin Woolwork in the May Morris exhibition that two threads of my recent learning were woven together!

Added to this, until 7 November, the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum has a fantastic display, drawn from their own collection, which also relates to the idea of ‘legacy’: Beyond the Brotherhood: The Legacies of the Pre-Raphaelites. Starting with a couple of their own drawings by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, it includes examples the ‘Liverpool School’ – local artists inspired by the Pre-Raphaelites – and of the Williamson's extensive collection of the works from the short-lived, Birkenhead-based Della Robbia Pottery Company – whose founder was a friend and associate of William Morris. And there is much more besides!

This is a lot to fit into 75 minutes – but I will look at May Morris in detail, fill out the connections between Morris and the Leek Embroidery Society, founded by Elizabeth Wardle, and then include highlights from Beyond the Brotherhood – including the Rossetti, not to mention a superb painting by one of the women I have written and spoken about before, Evelyn de Morgan.

Please remember, I do not record my talks.