William Morris Textiles and Wallpaper exhibit and other finds...

So, I came across this 'special exhibit' running at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, here in NYC and I went with a friend tonight. It is a small one room exhibit primarily showing textiles but if you love William Morris it is very much worth the trip! 

 

 William Morris Textiles and Wallpaper February 3–July 20, 2014

From the museum website, "William Morris (1834–1896) is acknowledged as the leader of the British Arts and Crafts movement of the second half of the nineteenth century. His enterprise, originally founded as Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company in 1861, became Morris & Company in 1875. They produced a variety of decorative arts, with textiles and wallpapers comprising a large portion of their artistic output. In 1923, the Metropolitan acquired the institution's first examples from the oeuvre of Morris & Company, and a selection of these are shown in this installation. According to the printed company logo on the selvages, the printed textiles bought that year were produced after Morris & Company moved to Hanover Square, London, in 1917. Like the printed textiles, the wallpapers and the woven fabrics were probably produced later than their original design date, attesting to their perennial appeal.

A white card on the wall mentioned a familiar name:  "John Henry Dearle (1860-1932) was hired by Morris in 1878 and began designing for Morris & Company in the late 1880s. Like Morris, Dearle was enamored of historic textiles and carefully studied the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection in London. Two examples of his work from the early 1890s are displayed in this gallery. Upon Morris's death, Dearle became the company's chief designer. 


Walking through the museum I spied a few favorite portraits and some paintings...

"King Lear," Act I, Scene I by Edwin Austin Abbey (American, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1852–1911 London) Date: 1898 Medium: Oil on canvas

 John Singer Sargent's The Wyndham Sisters, 1899, Oil on Canvas, 115 x 84 1/8 in., Metropolitan Museum of Art

Queen Victoria, 1838 by Thomas Sully (American, 1783–1872), Oil on canvas; 94 x 58 in. (238.8 x 147.3 cm) Lent by Mrs. Arthur A. Houghton Jr. (L.1993.45)