May Morris

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May Morris, photograph (1887) by Frederick Hollyer

May Morris (born Mary Morris , born March 25, 1862 in Bexley , London , † October 17, 1938 in Kelmscott Manor , Oxfordshire ) was a British entrepreneur and product designer for colored and white embroidery and an early British socialist .

Life

childhood

The Morris and Burne-Jones families, photograph by Frederick Hollyer, 1874. Fourth from right: May Morris

Mary (May) Morris was the younger daughter of the architect and painter William Morris (1834-1896), one of the founders of the Arts and Crafts Movement and early founder of the socialist movement in Great Britain and his wife Jane Burden (1839-1914). At the age of seven, she learned to embroider from her mother and her sister. She visited her father in his workshop; especially interested them the stained glass and the kiln -House (Kiln House).

After the family had to give up the Red House in Upton, Bexleyheath, they moved to London and lived in Queen Square, Bloomsbury from 1865 to 1872. From childhood, May and her older sister Jane Alice (Jenny) were close friends with the children of Georgie and Edward Burne-Jones . She and her sister attended Notting Hill High School in Norland Square, Notting Hill . From 1871 onwards they spent the summer holidays at Kelmscott Manor , the house that was a source of inspiration for them and their father.

Studies, embroidery, marriage

May Morris studied textile arts at the South Kensington School of Design from 1880 to 1883. In 1885, at the age of 23, she took over the management of the embroidery department of the Morris & Co. company . She had already designed some embroidery for them and from then on carried out all new designs, together with Morris' assistant John Henry Dearle , who later became the company's art director .

Antependium (embroidery) by May Morris, designed by Philip Webb

In 1886 May fell in love with Henry Halliday Sparling, Secretary of the Hammersmith Socialist League . Despite her mother's concern about his rural origins, the two married on June 14, 1890 in the Fulham registry office . Sparling was hired by Kelmscott Printers and they rented a house at 8. Hammersmith Terrace. Morris worked on the firm's larger assignments, such as porters, wall hangings and altar cloths . When she moved into her own house after the wedding, the embroiderers (including two sisters of the poet William Butler Yeats ) came there and worked in her drawing room. Her father visited her every morning to see how the work was progressing.

When May resumed her previous love affair with George Bernard Shaw and traveled with him to the International Socialist Workers' Congress in Zurich , the couple went their separate ways. They were divorced in 1898 and May took her maiden name again.

Teaching activity, socialist movement

From 1899 to 1908 she gave instruction in embroidery at both the Central School of Arts & Crafts and the School of Art Needlework (now the Royal School of Needlework). She was also a major jewelry designer and exhibited regularly at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society .

Because women were not allowed in the Art-Workers Guild, she founded the Women's Guild of Arts in 1907 and remained its president until 1935.

Along with her father and husband, she was one of the first British socialists . Together with Eleanor Marx and Friedrich Engels, they laid the foundation for the socialist movement.

After her father's death in 1896, she published his novels and poems in 24 volumes, each limited to 1,050 books, 1,000 of which were intended for sale.

Later years

May Morris, 1909

Morris made friends with former tractor operator and gardener from Kelmscott Manor, Mary Lobb, who later moved in. In 1910, Morris traveled to America and Canada with Mary Lobb, where she also gave lectures. There she fell in love with the American lawyer and manuscript collector John Quinn . After returning to England, the two exchanged letters that lasted until 1917. Quinn was seriously interested in Morris' work and wanted to support her efforts. The correspondence was rediscovered 75 years later in the John Quinn (1870-1924) Memorial Collection of the New York Public Library .

In 1913 - a year before her death - her mother Jane bought Kelmscott Manor, which had previously only been rented, for £ 4,000 for her daughters. Morris exhibited her work at the world exhibition in Ghent (1913) and the Exposition d'Arts Décoratifs in Paris (1914).

During the First World War , she helped with fieldwork in Kelmscott and ran a soup kitchen in the village. Morris pursued the idea of ​​a village community house for Kelmscott over the years. The architect friend Ernest Gimsom drew the plans, but died in 1919. Mary Lobb lived in Kelmscott Manor until Morris' death in 1938.

Morris died on October 17, 1938. She was buried near her family in Kelmscott at St George's Church. In the following year the planned village community center was built and opened by George Bernard Shaw in the presence of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald .

Publications

literature

  • Frank P. Brown: South Kensington & its art training . Publisher: Longmans, Greene & Co., London 1912.
  • Jan Marsh: Jane and May Morris: A Biographical Story, 1839-1938 , Pandora Pr (1986) ISBN 0-86358-113-7 .
  • Gay Daly: Pre-Raphaelites in Love , Ticknor & Fields (1989) ISBN 0-89919-450-8 .
  • Pamela Todd: Pre-Raphaelites at Home , Watson-Guptill Publications (2001) ISBN 0-8230-4285-5 .
  • Linda Parry: May Morris, embroidery, and Kelmscott , William Morris: art and Kelmscott, ed. L. Parry, Society of Antiquaries of London Occasional Papers, new ser., 18 (1996).
  • Linda Parry: William Morris Textiles . Publisher: V&A Museum, ISBN 978-1-8517-7732-7 .
  • Linda Cluckie: The Rise and Fall of Art Needlework: Its Socio-economic and Cultural Aspects . Publisher: Arena Books; Edition: New. 2008. ISBN 978-0-9556-0557-4 .
  • On Poetry, Painting, and Politics: The Letters of May Morris and John Quinn. Edited by Janice Londraville. Publisher: Susquehanna University Press, 1997 ISBN 978-0-9456-3696-0 .

Web links

Commons : May Morris  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual references, source

  1. ↑ History of Queen Square ( Memento of the original from November 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.camden.gov.uk
  2. ^ Notting Hill and Ealing High School
  3. ^ Frank P. Brown: South Kensington & its art training . Publisher: Longmans, Greene & Co., London 1912 - on the Internet Archive - online
  4. ↑ http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp93024/
  5. ↑ Immogen Hart: On the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society
  6. ↑ Ernest Grimson
  7. ^ Pamphlet for the Morris Memorial Hall, Kelmscott in Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum
and source
personal data
SURNAME Morris, May
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Morris, Mary (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British entrepreneur and product designer specializing in colored and white embroidery
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Bexley
DATE OF DEATH October 17, 1938
Place of death Kelmscott Manor , Oxfordshire