William Morris; Decor and Design

192 pages. Glossary of Patterns. Commercial Suppliers. Select Bibliography. Index. Elizabeth Wilhide is an author and novelist who has written extensively about design and decoration. Wilhide's first novel, Ashenden, was published by Penguin in June 2012. Her second novel, If I Could Tell You, was published by Fig Tree Penguin in February 2016. She was born in the United States and has lived in the United Kingdom since 1967. William Morris – one of the most influential designers of the 19th century and an important figure in the Arts and Craft movement – revisited in this inspirational interior design guide. Rich natural colors, liquid floral patterns, light airy rooms and simple wooden furniture are all radical principles of the Arts and Crafts movement, and are also the fundamentals of most modern décor. There has never been a better time for introducing Morris designs into the home. Illustrated with a wide range of historical and contemporary decorative schemes, this practical and inspirational guide suggests simple and cost-effective ways of creating an interior décor that aspires to purity, color and craftsmanship, as defined by William Morris. Chapters provide information on pattern-matching, wall and window treatments, floor coverings, tiles and furnishings, so that a 'Morris style' can be extended to whatever degree of authenticity desired. A comprehensive suppliers' list details where to buy Morris and Co. fabrics and wallpapers, and Arts and Crafts furnishings, while an illustrated glossary containing sixty of the best-known designs allows for easy pattern selection and identification. William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist,[1] writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he campaigned for socialism in fin de siècle Great Britain. Morris was born in Walthamstow, Essex, to a wealthy middle-class family. He came under the strong influence of medievalism while studying classics at Oxford University, where he joined the Birmingham Set. After university, he married Jane Burden, and developed close friendships with Pre-Raphaelite artists Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti and with Neo-Gothic architect Philip Webb. Webb and Morris designed Red House in Kent where Morris lived from 1859 to 1865, before moving to Bloomsbury, central London. In 1861, Morris founded the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. decorative arts firm with Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Webb, and others, which became highly fashionable and much in demand. The firm profoundly influenced interior decoration throughout the Victorian period, with Morris designing tapestries, wallpaper, fabrics, furniture, and stained glass windows. In 1875, he assumed total control of the company, which was renamed Morris & Co. From 1871, Morris rented the rural retreat of Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire, while also retaining a main home in London. He was greatly influenced by visits to Iceland with Eiríkur Magnússon, and he produced a series of English-language translations of Icelandic Sagas. He also achieved success with the publication of his epic poems and novels, namely The Earthly Paradise (1868–1870), A Dream of John Ball (1888), the Utopian News from Nowhere (1890), and the fantasy romance The Well at the World's End (1896). In 1877, he founded the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings to campaign against the damage caused by architectural restoration. By the influence of medievalism and Christian socialism in the 1850s he became a skeptic of industrial capitalism, after reading works of Henry George, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Karl Marx in the 1880s Morris became a committed revolutionary socialist activist until his final acceptance of parliamentary socialism at 1896. He founded the.…