Decorator, Morris William, Woven Textile Fabric Design, Golden Bough, Plate 34, Art Nouveau, c1888

This print is a copy of a design released for production c1888

Date: c1888

Artist: Morris William

Paper Size: 275 x 375mm

Print Size: 215 x 240mm

Condition: very good

Technique: Printed in colour, Calendar on Verso

Price: $50

Description: Printed in colour

Provenance:

The Art Nouveau Movement would never have been the same without William Morris. A true Renaissance man, William Morris mastered every art and craft to which he set his hand, revelling in designs, patterns, colours and textures, and placing his stamp on sumptuous books, rugs, embroidery, wallpaper, stained glass, tapestries, curtains and furniture.

Art Nouveau {ahr noo-voh'}, a French term meaning new art, refers to a style of architecture, of commercial and decorative art, and, to some extent, a style of painting and sculpture that was popular about 1900. Although the style was then thought of as modern and was given the title "new art," it was adapted from older styles and art forms. Much was derived from the Gothic and Rococo and from the arts of Java and Japan.

William Morris, was the founder of the Art Nouveau Arts and Crafts Movement in England. Employed by the renaissance of decorative arts, Morris studied medieval architecture at Oxford, but under the influence of Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriele Rossetti, leaders of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, he turned toward painting and writing. 

Biography

Morris William (1834-1896)

William Morris was a British textile designer, poet, novelist, translator 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 helped win acceptance of socialism at the end of the Century in 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 there joining 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.

Morris rented the rural retreat of Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire, from 1871 while also retaining a main home in London. He was greatly influenced by visits to Iceland with Eiríkr 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.

He embraced Marxism and was influenced by anarchism in the 1880s and became a committed revolutionary socialist activist. He founded the Socialist League in 1884 after an involvement in the Social Democratic Federation (SDF), but he broke with that organisation in 1890. In 1891, he founded the Kelmscott Press to publish limited-edition, illuminated-style print books, a cause to which he devoted his final years.

Morris is recognised as one of the most significant cultural figures of Victorian Britain. He was best known in his lifetime as a poet, although he posthumously became better known for his designs. The William Morris Society founded in 1955 is devoted to his legacy, while multiple biographies and studies of his work have been published. Many of the buildings associated with his life are open to visitors, much of his work can be found in art galleries and museums, and his designs are still in production.

Taken from Wikiedia