2006 WILLIAM MORRIS SOCIETY EVENTS IN THE U. K. Events Sponsored by the Morris Society Other Events in the UK Society Events: 2006 Programme Unless otherwise stated, all lectures are at Kelmscott House and tickets for these cost £4 for WMS members and £5 for non-members. Write for tickets to Ticket Applications, The William Morris Society, Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, London W6 9TA, enclosing payment (cheques payable to "The William Morris Society") and a stamped addressed envelope. Disclaimer: Attendees participate in events at their own risk; neither the Society, its officers, nor the organisers of any events accept any liability of any kind whatsoever, howsoever arising. The William Morris Society reserves the right to cancel, alter, or postpone events if necessary. Members are reminded that they should have adequate personal and travel insurance. No refunds unless cancelled by the Society, in which case a credit note will be given. Kindly note that the Society's premises have limited wheelchair access. The William Morris Society and Kelmscott Fellowship: Registered Charity No. 261437. Saturday 11 February, 2.15pm New Dawn Women: This lecture will be given by Irene Cockroft, an author, historian and independent exhibition organiser. She is the great-niece of Edwardian Arts and Crafts artist and Women’s Suffrage campaigner, Ernestine Mills [1871-1959]. Irene curated the recent ‘New Dawn Women’ exhibition at Watts Gallery, Compton, Surrey. This was a broad look at the artistic achievements and political aspirations of women of the Arts and Crafts era, and was the subject of her paper at the Society’s conference at Royal Holloway last July. Tuesday 21 February, 7.00pm Frederick Hollyer, Photography and the Arts and Crafts Movement: As a mechanical process for making pictures, photography might have been the least likely candidate to be supported by arts and crafts ideologies that prized handwork and individuality. Yet technical and theoretical upheavals in the medium during the 1890s encouraged a fundamental change in perception. Photography could be seen as a medium with its own unique aesthetic traditions and craft skills that had become over-industrialized and ready for reform. Frederick Hollyer [1837-1933] was a pivotal figure at this period, acting as a revered portrait photographer while making fine reproductions of art works. Martin Barnes is curator of photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum which he joined in 1995. He has written widely on19C photography and is the author of ‘Arts and Crafts photography in Britain and America’ in the V&A’s International Arts and Crafts exhibition catalogue [2005]. Saturday 4 March, 2.15pm From Hammersmith to Lechlade, a re-enactment with a difference: In 2003, Jock and Joy Birney re-enacted the voyage on the Thames that William Morris, his family and friends took in 1880. He rowed from Kelmscott House in Hammersmith to Kelmscott Manor near Lechlade. It inspired, in part, his well-known book ‘News from Nowhere’. Jock and Joy will tell, and illustrate, their own hilarious voyage, and compare it with William Morris’s 1880 trip and his allegorical version in ‘News from Nowhere’. Saturday 25 March, 2.15pm ‘Pevsner’s Morris’: The distinguished art historian Nikolaus Pevsner wrote about Morris and his achievements many times throughout his long career, from ‘Pioneers of the Modern Movement’ in 1936 to the well known postwar Buildings of England series. In this lecture Peter Faulkner will look in detail at the development of Pevsner’s sometimes controversial views, and consider their relevance today. Peter Faulkner is the Honorary Secretary of the Society and a former editor of ‘The Journal’. After the lecture we shall celebrate the birthday of William Morris with wine and cake. Wednesday 5 April, 2.00-4.00pm Visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum: We shall be met by Linda Parry, President of the Society, in the entrance of the V&A Museum, Kensington. During the afternoon we shall be shown, and have described to us, Morris related textile items from the Museum’s collection and which are not on general view to the public. Numbers will be limited. Tickets £3 [£4 non-members] from the William Morris Society. Saturday 8 April Visits to 7 Hammersmith Terrace, Home of Sir Emery Walker: This extremely valuable and fragile house is to be opened again this year and the Society has been offered special and exclusive access at the beginning of the opening season. Groups of eight people will be able to visit at 10.30am, 12.00 noon, and 2.00pm, for a 45-minute guided tour. Tickets £10 from The William Morris Society. Details of access and general information will be sent with your ticket. Fees to be donated to The Emery Walker Trust. Wednesday 3 May, 11.00am to 4.00pm The Artists’ Houses of Kensington: Leighton House Museum and Linley Sambourne House are just two of the artists houses in the Holland Park area of London, and during the last quarter of the 19C streets in the vicinity also became home to a colony of important painters. The day will include guided tours of both houses and a walking tour of other artists’ houses nearby. Please note that a significant amount of walking will take place over the course of the day. Please make your own arrangements for lunch. Meet at Leighton House, 12 Holland Park Road, London W14 8LZ. Tickets £15 from the William Morris Society. Saturday 20 May, 2.15pm The William Morris Society’s 51st Annual General Meeting: The meeting this year will take place in the coach house at Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall, Hammersmith. Following the formal business, Derek Baker, a past Honorary Secretary of the Society, will give the Penelope Fitzgerald Memorial Address. His talk is titled: ‘When Morris met Van Gogh-?-!’ and will compare the lives of these two artists. The afternoon will conclude with tea and biscuits. Admission free. Thursday 1 June Visit to Kelmscott Manor: We shall leave by coach from the Apollo Theatre, Hammersmith at 8.30am and travel to Kelmscott Manor for a ‘Stewarded Tour’ of the house. This includes coffee and introductory talk on arrival after which you tour the house on your own. After lunch [picnic or at the local Plough Inn], it is proposed to visit one or two churches with Morris & Co stained glass on the return journey to Hammersmith, to be reached by about 5.00pm. The cost is £20 [non-members £25] to include cost of coach travel and entrance to the Manor, but not lunch. Write to The William Morris Society marked ‘Kelmscott Manor’ with an SAE. Saturday 10 June, 2.15pm Speech Sites: Conserving and Conversing: Alan Read’s lecture will explore three intertwined histories of speech that mark the site of Kelmscott House, 26 Upper Mall. Each is marked by a commemorative plaque set into the walls of the house and coach house. The first from the early nineteenth century is the technological revolution of Francis Ronalds who invented the first electric telegraph and experimented with its possibilities in the garden of number 26. The second is of public speech with social purpose that William Morris developed in the lecture room of the Hammersmith Socialists next door to the house. The third is the domestic dramatic traditions of George MacDonald whose tenure of the house in the 1870s joins Ronalds history to Morris. The talk will be illustrated with images drawn from the Ronalds and Morris archives. Alan Read is a resident of Chiswick Mall and from March has been Professor and Chair of Theatre at Kings’ College, London. This is the lecture which although listed in last year’s programme in September, did not take place. It has fortunately been able to be re- scheduled for this year, and existing tickets can, of course, be carried forward. Wednesday 5 July Visit to the Warner Textile Archive and St Mary the Virgin, Great Warley: We shall leave by coach from Hammersmith’s Apollo Theatre at 8.30am and travel to Braintree, Essex for a visit to the recently opened Warner Textile Archive on Silks Way after a major re-organisation following closure of The Humphries Weaving Company. We shall have a guided tour of this nationally important archive which is a unique record of the history of textile manufacture since the 18C and includes every example of woven and printed fabric produced by Warners as well as examples by other companies. It is suggested that packed lunches are brought to eat on the coach as we travel to the church of St Mary the Virgin, Great Warley. Consecrated in 1904, this Grade 1 listed building is unique in that it possesses the only Art Nouveau-style church interior in the world. We shall have tea and biscuits before leaving for Hammersmith which should be reached by about 5.00pm. The cost is £15 to include coach and entrance fees but not lunch. Write to The William Morris Society marked ‘Warners, with an SAE. Saturday 22 July, 2.15pm Tracing Morris in 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists': Mike Smith-Rawnsley, affiliated to the University of Exeter, will expand on the paper he delivered to the Society’s conference at Royal Holloway last July. His introduction to the lecture is as follows. The inscription on the memorial, on the grave of Robert Tressell, author of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, is a quotation from one of Morris’s Chants for Socialists. The discovery that this was part of a longer unattributed quote in Tressell’s book inspired me to seek out other evidence of the direct or indirect influence of Morris in this Socialist classic, with often surprising results. Saturday 2 September, 2.15pm William Morris and G D H Cole: G D H Cole’s centenary anthology, published by the Nonesuch Press in 1934, did much to restore Morris’s reputation after some years of neglect. It also presented a fuller picture of Morris as artist, writer and Socialist than had been attempted in any previous selection from his work. The 1934 anthology, however, was only one stage in a continuing fascination with Morris that lasted from Cole’s schooldays to the end of his life. Beginning with the construction of Morris offered by the Nonesuch volume, this talk will explore aspects of Cole’s engagement with Morris’s ideas, in particular the part played by Morris in the formation of Cole’s vision as a socialist historian, and how Cole’s writings helped to establish Morris as a central figure in any consideration of British culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The lecture will be delivered by Peter Preston, Chair of the William Morris Society, and who has recently retired as Director of the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Nottingham, where he is now Special Lecturer in the School of English Studies and Academic Consultant to the D H Lawrence Research Centre. Saturday 16 September, 1.00 – 5.00pm London Open House Day: Once again we shall be opening the Society’s accommodation to the public one hour earlier than our normal time on this afternoon. The numbers have been rising steadily and last year almost five hundred people arrived. This is good for the Society but makes it even more hard work for those who do volunteer to help. If you can assist please contact our Curator, Helen Elletson, at Kelmscott House on any Thursday or Saturday afternoon. Saturday 23 September, 2.15pm Musical Recital by ‘Elatos’: For their recital this time, Bridget Cunningham and Byron Mahoney will be joined by a performer on the viola da gamba.. Details of the proposed programme will be given in the Newsletter. Admission free but a collection will be made to cover expenses. Tuesday 3 October, 2.00 – 4.30pm Collections Day: Following the successful introduction last year of this event, our Curator, Helen Elletson, will again be talking about and showing some of the items from the Society’s collection not usually on view, including new acquisitions. Numbers have to be limited, apply early. Tickets £4, non-members £5. Saturday 14 October, 2.15pm From Merton Abbey to Moscow: the Arts and Crafts Movement in Russia: The notice in the autumn Newsletter announced the postponement of this lecture. Happily, we have been able to re-arrange it as above. Dr Rosalind P Blakesley is Senior Lecturer in History of Art and Fellow of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. The last quarter of the nineteenth century in Russia was one of great social and cultural change. In the arts a growing nostalgia for Russia’s past caused painters, architects and decorative artists to take inspiration from the resplendent domed churches and ornate decoration of the pre-Imperial period. At the same time, the peasant was iconised as the embodiment of Russian identity and the repository of the nation’s soul. This lecture will examine how these developments led to a rich and compelling Arts and Crafts Movement, in which millionaire merchants and idealistic aristocrats galvanised the revival of Russia’s native crafts. Tickets purchased for the talk last year will naturally be valid for this date. Saturday 14 October, 2.30pm William Morris and the English Countryside: The 2006 Richard Jefferies Birthday Lecture will be given by Martin Haggerty. Saturday 14th October, 2.30 pm, in the Church Hall, Chiseldon, near Swindon, Wiltshire. Admission is free and no advance booking is required. Further information from Jean Saunders: 01793-783-040 or R.Jefferies_Society@tiscali.co.uk. Martin Haggerty is an independent researcher and writer, specialising in aspects of English cultural history. As such, he has published work on a wide range of themes, from landscape to philosophy and from architecture to music, but most typically on literary topics. He holds Master's degrees in both English and Theology and a postgraduate diploma in Heritage Interpretation. Martin served on the committee of the William Morris Society from 1997 to 2004 and was the editor of their Newsletter for most of that time. Also since 1997, but continuing, he has been a committee member for the Edward Thomas Fellowship, whose website he manages. His earlier voluntary positions include serving as Open Spaces and Footpaths Secretary for the Ramblers' Association, Inner London Area, from 1995 to '98. An environmentalist since childhood, Martin has in recent years become prominent as a campaigner against GM food and farming. He is currently a national co-ordinator in the Genetic Engineering Network (GEN), working as an intermediary between NGOs, local groups, farmers, scientists and activists involved in the anti-GM campaign across Britain. Martin has been a member of the Richard Jefferies Society for many years. His other membership includes Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (founded by William Morris), the British Agricultural History Society, Christian Ecology Link and the Rural Theology Association. Friday 3 November, 6.30pm 2006 Kelmscott Lecture: The lecture will be given by Phillippa Bennett, the most recent Peter Floud Prizewinner. Her topic is "Morris in Wonderland: The Last Romances and the Kelmscott Press." This year’s Kelmscott Lecture will consider the relationship between the two outstanding achievements of William Morris’s final years – the writing of the Last Romances and the founding of the Kelmscott Press. The Story of the Glittering Plain was the first book to be issued from the Press in 1891, whilst The Water of the Wondrous Isles and The Sundering Flood were published posthumously in the final months of the Press’s activity. The relationship between the Last Romances and the Kelmscott Press, however, extends beyond a shared chronology, for it is in their Kelmscott Press editions that Morris’s final narratives find their most appropriate representation. Focusing on the concept of wonder as their unifying feature, the lecture will explore how the Last Romances’ predominant concern with the wondrous and their celebration of the art of wondering is reflected visually and materially in the construct of the Kelmscott Press books, demonstrating Morris’s belief that the act of reading could and should be an act of wonder, and constitutes one of the "endless pleasures" of human existence. At the Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AR. Tickets £14 [£16 non-members] including buffet and wine. Saturday 18 November, 2.15pm From Hammersmith to Dublin: In this illustrated talk, past-Chair David Rainger traces the links between Hammersmith and Dublin. May Morris, Emery Walker and the Yeats sisters all played their part in this enterprise of Embroidery, Weaving, Tapestry and Printing. The story starts with Morris & Co, Kelmscott Press and Dun Emer, and ends seventy years later at the Cuala Press, Dublin. Saturday 9 December, 2.15pm Poetry Readings: Members of the Society, including Dorothy Coles and Edwin Walters, will give some readings, perhaps with a Christmas flavour, to follow up a similar event at this time last year. The afternoon will include mince pies and wine. Tickets £5 from the William Morris Society. WHAT’S ON ELSEWHERE (update 22 Jul 2006) Exhibitions Abbot Hall art gallery, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 5AL David Bomberg 17 July-28 October 2006 T 01539 722464 E info@abbothall.org.uk www.abbothall.org.uk Ashmolean Museum, Beaumont St, Oxford, OX1 Imagining Leonardo 9 August-5 November 2006 T 01865 278000 www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk Barbican art gallery, Barbican, Silk St, London EC2 Future City: Experiment and Utopia in Architecture 1956-2006 Until 17 September 2006 T 0845 120 7500 www.barbican.org.uk Blackwell, The Arts & Crafts House, Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria. The Synge-Craven Collection of English Slipware 27 June-29 October 2006 T 015394 46139 E info@blackwell.org.uk www.blackwell.org.uk The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham. DL12 8NP. Impressionist Women Until 3 August Fine and Fashionable: Lace from the Blackborne Collection 9 September 2006-29 April 2007 T 01833 690606 E info@bowesmuseum.org.uk www.bowesmuseum.org.uk Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, Royal Pavilion Gardens, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 1EE Rex Whistler: The Triumph of Fancy Until 3 September 2006 This exhibition is the first major retrospective to bring together Rex Whistler’s work in all media; his days at the Slade School of Art, his greatest success in the 1930s, and the poignant jeux d’esprit of his final months. It reveals the full extent of Whistler’s achievement in the context of his life and times. Recommended. T + 44 (0)1273 290900 E visitor.services@brighton-hove.gov.uk British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1 French Drawings: Clouet to Seurat Opens 29 June 2006 www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk Dean gallery, 73 Belford Rd, Edinburgh, EH4 Van Gogh & Britain: Pioneer Collectors 7 July-24 September 2006 The largest Van Gogh show in Britain for 40 years. T 0870 118 1859 www.nationalgalleries.org/summer ditchling museum, Church Lane, Ditchling, Sussex, BN6 8TB. With Pen, Ink and Paper: Being Edward Johnston Until 1 October 2006 This year sees the 100th anniversary of the publication of Edward Johnston’s Writing and Illuminating and Lettering, the book that launched the calligraphic revival of the twentieth century. This show celebrates the full range of Johnston’s creativity, from the London Transport type and logo, designed in his back bedroom in Ditchling, to quickly written posters for the Village Fête. Through Brangwyn’s Lens 7 October-17 December 2006 It is 50 years since the death of Frank Brangwyn, painter and designer, who lived and worked in the Jointure, Ditchling. To mark this event, this exhibition will focus on the incredible story of the artist’s photographic plates being saved by a young scaffolder working on the jointure in 1956. 45 years later printing from the plates revealed photographic studies and nudes of Ditchling residents recorded for the artist’s own reference for his paintings. Closed Sunday and Mondays T 1273 844744 info@ditchling-museum.com www.ditchling-museum.com Dulwich Picture Gallery, Gallery Road, Dulwich Village, London SE21. Rembrandt & Co: Dealing in Masterpieces Until 3 September 2006 Exhibition celebrating the 400th anniversary of the birth of Rembrandt T 020 8693 5254 www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk geffrye Museum, Kingsland Road, London E2: closed Mondays. Domestic Archaeology by the Light Surgeons Until 28 August 2006 A mixed media installation that will take visitors through a kaleidoscopic audiovisual investigation of the living room and its meanings. T 020 7739 9883 www.geffrye-museum.org.uk glyn vivian art gallery, Swansea Frank Brangwyn 1867-1956 14 October 2006-7 January 2007 Guildford House gallery, 155 High St, Guildford, GU1 William Hyde and Kate Rogers 29 July-16 September 2006 Work by the Victorian artist couple T 01483 444742 www surreymuseums.org.uk Guildhall Art Gallery, Guildhall Yard, London EC2 Spanning the River Until 10 September 2006 400 years of artists’ views of Thames Bridges. T 020 7332 3700 Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Market Square, Preston PR1 2PP Odd Pieces: Illustrated Music of the Victorian and Edwardian Era Until 10 September 2006 T 01772 258248 E harris.museum@preston.gov.uk www.harrismuseum.org.uk museum of Hartlepool, Maritime Ave, Hartlepool, TS24 Professor Bill Dane’s Puppets 15 July-10 October 2006 A fascinating range of puppets, including Punch and Judy characters, French puppets and a rare example of the work of Gilbert Parry of Lyons. T 01429 860077 Hayward Gallery, South Bank Centre, London Undercover Surrealism Until 31 July 2006 T 0870 169 1000 www.hayward.org.uk/undercover The Henry Moore Foundation, Dane Tree House, Perry Green, Much Hadham Herts SG10 6EE. Sheep Field Barn Gallery Henry Moore and the Challenge of Architecture Until 24 September 2006 The second year of this popular exhibition in the grounds and studios of The Henry Moore Foundation offers a fresh insight into this fascinating topic. Open to the public by appointment only, this exhibition offers a unique insight into the sculptor’s work, exploring the conflict between his interest in nature and the increasing tendency for his art to be shown in urban environments. Starting in the 1920s with Moore’s architectural drawings and collaborations with Charles Holden for the West Wind relief on London’s Transport Headquarters, the show will follow both realised and abandoned architectural projects, resulting from his associations with Serge Chermayeff, Wells Coates, Maxwell Fry, Walter Gropius and Berthold Lubetkin to post-war collaborations with Marcel Breuer, Gordon Bunshaft and IM Pei. T+44(0)1279 843333 Hunterian Art Gallery, 82 Hillhead Street, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ Doves and Dreams: The Art of Frances Macdonald and J Herbert McNair 12 August-18 November 2006 Doves and Dreams is the first exhibition to be devoted to the work of the artist-couple, Frances Macdonald (1873–1921) and J Herbert McNair (1868–1955). Together with Frances’s sister Margaret Macdonald and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, the artists formed the celebrated group, the ‘Glasgow Four’. This pioneering exhibition will highlight, for the first time, their distinctive and original contribution: McNair, the innovator and inspirational designer and teacher, and Macdonald, an exceptional talent who produced some of the most remarkable symbolist watercolours of the 20thC in Britain. Their art will be seen against the backdrop of their often tragic personal stories in Glasgow and Liverpool, and will include the artists’ engagement with the Glasgow School of Art, the ‘Art Sheds’ at University College, Liverpool, and Liverpool’s short-lived Sandon Studios. T +44 (0) 141 330 5431 E hunter@museum.gla.ac.uk hutton-in-the-forest, Nr Penrith, Cumbria. Potfest in the Park 28-30 July 2006 An international potters’ market in a most beautiful setting. Adults £4, children free www.potfest.co.uk Imperial war museum, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6 HZ The Animals’ War 14 July 2006-22 April 2007 T 102 7416 5320 www.iwm.org.uk The museum of domestic design and Architecture, Middlesex University, Cat Hill, Barnet, Herts, EN4 8HT Do it Yourself: Democracy and Design 25 July-10 September 2006 This exhibition explores the interface between ‘Design’ as an established professional activity and ‘Do It Yourself’ as its antithesis – a more democratic, self-driven process carried out closer to the end-user of the goods created. T 020 8411 5244 E moda@mdx.ac.uk www.moda.mdx.ac.uk National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London Rebels and Martyrs: The Artist in the Nineteenth Century 28 June-28 August 2006 The idea of the artist as rebellious, isolated and suffering - a visionary outsider battling against a philistine and hostile society - is an extraordinarily potent one and is the subject of this fascinating exhibition. It will trace this archetype of the artist from its origins in Romanticism to its climax in the life and work of Van Gogh and Gauguin and their Symbolist and Expressionist heirs such as Munch, Hodler and Schiele. Featuring key works by many of the most important artists of the 19th century, including Friedrich, Delacroix, Courbet, Manet and Degas, the exhibition will explore the personas adopted or promoted by artists during the century from the bohemian and dandy to those of priest, monk and martyr. www.nationalgallery.org.uk Royal academy of arts, Piccadilly, London W1J OBD. Modigliani and His Models 8 July-15 October 2006 www.royalacademy.org.uk Standen, West Hoathly Road, East Grinstead, West Sussex. RH19 4NE Useful and Beautiful: A Selling Exhibition by Four Craftsmen 28 June-30 July 2006, Wednesday to Sunday. H Bert Buri, cabinet maker; Jonathan Chiswell Jones, potter; Sam Fanaroff, metal smith and James Price, blacksmith and designer display and sell their work. Jonathan Chiswell Jones plans a study day on William de Morgan’s lustre during the exhibition period. T 01342 323029 E standen@nationaltrust.org.uk Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1 Constable: The Great Landscapes Until 28 August 2006 ‘In this superbly realised exhibition, you need to think as well as look, to ask yourself what Constable is trying to do in each work – and whether or not he succeeds. Once you engage actively with the problems he faced and attempted to solve at every stage in his career, the show is endlessly rewarding.’ Richard Dorment, writing in The Telegraph, 3.06.06. Howard Hodgkin Until 17 September 2006 Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 Wassily Kandinsky: the Path to Abstraction 1908-1922 Until 3 September 2006 T 020 7887 8888 Tate St Ives, Porthmeor Beach, St Ives, Cornwall. John Hoyland: The Trajectory of a Fallen Angel Until 24 September T 01736 796226 www.tate.org.uk The Walker Art Gallery, William Brown Street, Liverpool, L3 Sculptures by Auguste Rodin Until 28 September 2006 T 1051 478 4199 www.liverpoolmuseums.org The Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London. Modernism: Designing a New World Until 23 July 2006 Modernism was the movement which revolutionised the world around us and the way we live. It inspired and influenced the buildings we inhabit, the chairs we sit on and the graphic design that we see today. This exhibition is the first in-depth look at the key movement of 20thC design, from the white geometric planes of Le Corbusier's houses to the smooth surfaces of the earliest fitted kitchen, the aerodynamic lines of the Czech Tatra car and the original tubular steel chairs of the Bauhaus. Che Guevara: Revolutionary Icon Until 28 August 2006 T 020 7942 2000 E bookings@vam.ac.uk www.vam.co.uk Lectures and Conferences George Bernard Shaw 150th Anniversary Conference Beveridge Hall, Senate House, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HU Saturday 22 July 2006 To mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, this one-day conference will celebrate the life and works of the writer of Pygmalion and Saint Joan, with entertaining readings and lectures. It will be accessible to all and particularly relevant for admirers of Shaw's wit and humour. £30 standard; £20 concessions; £5 sandwich lunch. Please contact: The Administrator Institute of English Studies University of London Senate House Malet Street London WC1E 7HU E ies@sas.ac.uk T 020 7862 8675 The Chapel, Castle Howard, North Yorkshire Reflections on the stained glass of William Morris and Sir Edward Burne-Jones Wednesday 26 July, 6.45 pm As part of the Ryedale Festival, the world-renowned stained glass conservator, Peter Gibson, of the York Glaziers' Trust, will talk about the beautiful windows - designed by Edward Burne-Jones - in the Chapel at Castle Howard. Tickets, £4.00 (no concessions), must be bought in advance. T 01751 475 777 www.ryedalefestival.co.uk Christ Church, Oxford At Home with Charles and Mary Lamb A One-Day Conference Saturday 11 November 2006 Invited Speakers: Jane Aaron, Gurion Taussig, Kathy Watson, Duncan Wu This will be the first one-day conference dedicated to the work of Charles and Mary Lamb. It aims to remember the Lambs as radicals, readers, and writers and to recreate the atmosphere of sociable creativity recalled by Hazlitt in his accounts of those 'many lively skirmishes' at their evening parties. Reflecting on their links with the London stage and periodical culture as well as an early nineteenth-century metropolitan milieu of literary sociability, the conference will reassess the Lambs' position in the 'canon' and highlight the continuing importance of their writing to our understanding of the complexity of romantic literature. In recent years, the Lambs' work has attracted increasing scholarly and critical interest, thanks in no small measure to the Charles Lamb Bulletin, and to studies such as Jane Aaron's A Double Singleness (1991), Joseph Riehl's That Dangerous Figure (1998), Judith Plotz's Romanticism and the Vocation of Childhood (2001) and Adriana Craciun's Fatal Women of Romanticism (2002). More recently, wider public interest has been drawn by Sarah Burton's biography, Double Life (2004), Kathy Watson's The Devil Kissed Her (2004) and Peter Ackroyd's fictional The Lambs of London (2005). This conference, supported by the Charles Lamb Society, will aim to capitalise on the latest developments in Lamb studies by extending recent areas of debate and exploring new lines of inquiry. Tim Milnes (University of Edinburgh) tim.milnes@ed.ac.uk Felicity James (Christ Church, Oxford) felicity.james@christ-church.oxford.ac.uk www.englit.ed.ac.uk/research/conference/lambconf06/lamb_poster.htm christ’s hospital school, Horsham, Sussex Open Day 9 September 2006 Frank Brangwyn’s cartoons will be exhibited in the Chapel alongside his murals. KELMSCOTT MANOR, Kelmscott, near Lechlade, GL7 3HJ Kelmscott Press Day Saturday 23 September 2006, 11am-5pm A rare opportunity to see a special exhibition of inscribed, association and other selected works from the Manor’s Kelmscott Press collection £15 (£9 for WMS members), includes entry to the Manor’s whole exhibition and garden. Tickets to be booked in advance, for timed entry to the Manor E admin@kelmscottmanor.co.uk T 01367 253348 THE RICHARD JEFFERIES SOCIETY Church Hall, Chiseldon, near Swindon, Wiltshire. William Morris and the English Countryside The 2006 Richard Jefferies Birthday Lecture will be given by Martin Haggerty. Saturday 14 October, 2.30 pm. Admission is free and no advance booking is required. Martin Haggerty is an independent researcher and writer, specialising in aspects of English cultural history. As such, he has published work on a wide range of themes, from landscape to philosophy and from architecture to music, but most typically on literary topics. He holds Master's degrees in both English and Theology and a postgraduate diploma in Heritage Interpretation. Martin served on the committee of the William Morris Society from 1997 to 2004 and was the editor of their Newsletter for most of that time. Further information from Jean Saunders T 01793 - 783 040 R.Jefferies_Society@tiscali.co.uk Serpentine Gallery Wallpaper Study Day at the V&A Museum Monday 17 July 2006, 11am-5pm. Organised by the Serpentine Gallery on the occasion of the Thomas Demand exhibition, the Wallpaper Study Day at the V&A Museum offers a rare opportunity to view wallpapers from the V&A’s collection. The study day will take the exhibition by artist Thomas Demand at the Serpentine Gallery as a starting point. For his exhibition, Demand will fill the gallery space at the Serpentine Gallery with densely patterned ivy wallpaper. The Wallpaper Study Day will examine and consider wallpaper design and technique with a particular focus on artists’ wallpapers. Gill Saunders, Senior Curator at the V&A Museum, will present a selection of wallpapers from the collection, including key pieces from the Arts and Crafts movement. We will also have contributions from contemporary artists David Mabb and Abigail Lane and printer Bob Pain whose work responds to wallpaper traditions. V&A Print and Drawing Study Room 4th Floor, Henry Cole Wing, Exhibition Road Tickets £10 (£6 concessions) Tel 020 7402 6075 or from the Serpentine Gallery Lobby Desk Skinner’s Hall, London Open Days to view their Frank Brangwyn murals 16-17 October 2006 TACS Conference 2006, Coalbrookdale site of the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust. Church Ceramics: Decorative tiles, mosaic and terracotta during and after the Gothic Revival 6-7 October 2006. This groundbreaking conference aims to examine the use of decorative tiles, mosaic and terracotta in the church from the mid nineteenth century to the present day. Victorian tile pavements have been something of a Cinderella subject, often being ignored or wrongly described, their iconography and design little noticed in comparison with stained glass, ironwork and woodwork. By focusing on the origins of tile designs, manufacturers and the manufacturing process, the architects and artists who designed the tiles and the firms which supplied them, and the vast range of surviving tile pavements, this conference will attempt to reassess the contribution of ceramics to church decoration. To register interest please e-mail:lynnpearson2@btinternet.com Woodford Parish Church Memorial Hall, High Road, London E18 2PJ William Morris and his Essex Roots A talk by Derek Baker Monday 23 October 2006, 7:45pm. William Morris grew up in Woodford Hall, on the site of which the Memorial Hall now stands. Derek Baker’s talk will consider the influence of Epping Forest and the surrounding Essex countryside on Morris’s development. Derek is a former Secretary of the William Morris Society, and author of The Flowers of William Morris. He is particularly interested in the influence of natural forms on Morris and his work. The event is being held to raise money for restoration of the Memorial Hall’s flèche, the crowning feature on this fine late Victorian building. Tickets £5, to include light refreshments after the talk. Further information: 020 8504 8103 The Victorian Society England's most easterly resorts: Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft Friday 18 -Sunday 20 August 2006 In the late nineteenth-century Great Yarmouth expanded rapidly to meet the needs of seaside visitors. Alongside the amusement arcades The Golden Mile has maintained an unrivalled collection of Edwardian entertainment buildings, including the Empire and Windmill theatres. Art Nouveau details and terracotta work were a distinctive feature of JW Cockrill’s influence as Borough Surveyor during this time and the highlight of the weekend will be a show at The Hippodrome, designed by his son, RS Cockrill, in 1903, where the original mechanics for converting the circus ring into a pool are still in operation. Tickets From £115 non-residential, £225 residential. (For insurance reasons, residential delegates must be members of the Society). For further information, please see our booking form (downloadable from: www.victoriansociety.org.uk/downloads/2006GreatYarmouth.pdf) Full information about joining the society, regional activities and bookings is available from its headquarters at 1 Priory Gardens, Bedford Park, London W4 ITT T 020 8994 1019 events@victoriansociety.org.uk www.victorian-society.org.uk HOME · NEW · EVENTS · NEWSLETTER · SITE ARCHIVE · ABOUT THE SOCIETY MORRIS' LIFE AND WORKS · PRODUCTS · LINKS · JOURNAL · CONTACT US LAST UPDATE 28 OCT 2006 · PLEASE REPORT BROKEN LINKS TO WEBMASTER @ MORRISSOCIETY.ORG