2008 WILLIAM MORRIS SOCIETY EVENTS IN THE UK

Society Events: 2008 Programme

Unless otherwise stated,ll 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, 26 January, 2.15 p. m.
Vernon Lushington and his Friendship with William Morris
David Taylor

Saturday, 23 February, 2.15 p. m.
Ruskin, Morris, De Morgan, Leach: What Earthly Use in our Consumer Paradise?
Jonathan Chiswell Jones

Saturday, 8 March, 2.15 p. m.
William Morris and the Libertarian Tradition in Britain
David Goodway

Saturday, 29 March, 2.15 p. m.
Rossetti at Kelmscott
Peter Faulkner

Saturday, 19 April, 2.15 p. m.
William Morris and the ‘Ship of the Community
Anna Vaniskaya

Friday, 9 May, 8.30 a. m.
Visit to Kelmscott, Great Coxwell and Uffington

Saturday, 17 May, 2 p. m.
The William Morris Society's 53rd Annual General Meeting
Following the formal business of the afternoon the Penelope Fitzgerald Memorial Address will be given by Patrick O'Sullivan. He is the new editor of the Journal of William Morris Studies and the abstract of his talk is as follows: "Life at the tipping point: William Morris in a time of global change. Although her historical novels sometimes included famous people (e.g. Goethe, Fichte, Schlegel, Gramsci), in her fiction, Penelope Fitzgerald mainly wrote about the lives of ordinary people during extraordinary times. Although her writings refer to social and political conditions, we could easily apply this description to current environmental conditions, in which we are experiencing almost unprecedented global instability and change. The lecture will illustrate certain aspects of this current instability, and will explore ways in which the life, work and ideas of William Morris are still relevant, even in such "interesting times." Past and present environmental trends will be discussed in the context of the globalisation of production which has taken place over the past four hundred years - a process to which William Morris was militantly opposed on both social, economic and environmental grounds, even from the time of his earliest writings."

Saturday, 31 May, 11 a. m.-5 p.m.
Cleaning Day at Kelmscott House
Admission free!

Saturday, 7 June, 10 a. m.-5 p. m.
Kelmscott House Open Day
Open Garden Squares Weekend, organised by London Parks & Gardens Trust

Saturday, 14 June, 8.30 a. m.
Visit to Churches in the South Midlands

Saturday, 28 June, 2.15 p. m.
Cultural Labour and the Role of Art: Commitment and Practice in the Work of William Morris
Peter Smith
In this lecture Peter Smith, Principal Lecturer in Art History and Cultural Theory at Thames Valley University, considers William Morris as a theorist and commentator on the visual arts. In particular he focuses on the terminology 'labour' and 'culture' and the social distinctions that attach to their common usage. Smith argues that the modern sense of culture as an exalted or superior mode of labour is limiting in the way it seeks to distance itself from the production of material life. Morris sought a reconciliation of intellectual and decorative art as a way of addressing recurrent divisions between culture and labour. Visual arts practices generally served as a useful model for Morris because they rely on the crucial connection between hand and brain which is forged by labour. The philosophical importance of labour as a concept that defines the human subject will be related to the Marxist thought that 'as individuals express their life so they are. Smith thus places emphasis on labour as an ontological category. It is this way of thinking about the centrality of work that inspired Morris when he read Marx and found support for ideas that he had already arrived at by other means. Smith argues that there is something exceptional in Morris's capacity to see the concept of work inscribed in all systems of valuation and this realisation motivated his political project. Making labour attractive was for Morris a socialist imperative and an essential feature of his picture of the society of the future.

21 - 24 July
Visit to the Lake District
There may be a few places available for this trip. If you want to be kept informed of the situation, please write to Kelmscott House with a self-addressed envelope, and mark your envelope "Lake District."

Saturday, 16 August, 2.30 p. m.
Arts and Crafts in Chelsea
This afternoon's walk will pass along the eastern edge of Chelsea, redeveloped from the mid-1870s, looking at the tall red brick houses, encrusted with oriels and terracotta sunflowers, in the then novel and cheerful Queen Anne manner. We shall see houses by such noted practitioners of that style as Norman Shaw, A. H. Mackmurdo, C. F. A. Voysey and Earnest George. The walk will end at Sloane Square where we shall visit Holy Trinity Church by J. P. Sedding, well-known for its wealth of Arts and Crafts decoration and its glass by Morris and Christopher Whall. We can then find refreshments in the new food store that occupies the former Peter Jones shop off Sloane Square. Those coming on the walk should meet in Basil Street, behind Harrods, a few moments from Knightsbridge tube station.
Tickets from Kelmscott House at £2.

Saturday, 6 September, 2.15 p. m.
William Morris and the Great Story of the North
This lecture, a synopsis of which will appear in the next edition of the UK Newsletter, will be given by Simon Dentith, Professor of English at the University of Reading. He has a lifelong interest in the work of William Morris, especially in Morris as a utopian thinker and as a poet. He lives in Gloucestershire, a county which has fostered his interest in the Arts and Crafts movement.

Saturday, 20 September, 1-5 p. m.
London Open House Day
This annual event is becoming ever more popular, certainly as far as Kelmscott House is concerned. We have five hundred visitors in the space of four hours. It is therefore evident that we need a team of volunteers to monitor the afternoon, both on and off duty. A detailed knowledge of William Morris's life is not essential; we have notes to help in this way. We are appealing to the membership to support the stalwarts who already do their duty, to contact our curator, Helen Elletson at Kelmscott House.

Saturday, 4 October, 2.15 p. m.
A Small Whirlpool of Industry: The Collaborative Genius of Morris & Company
Kelmscott Lecture
This year's lecture will be given by Peter Cormack, FSA, formerly Keeper of the William Morris Gallery.

Exhibitions

Until 6 April
Chinoiserie
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham
A celebration of Chinese influence in design including the famous "willow pattern."
www.bowesmuseum.org.uk

Until 30 March
Breaking the Rules: The Printed Face of the European Avant-Garde 1900-1937
British Library, London
www.bl.uk

Until 17 February
The Age of Enchantment: Beardsley, Dulac and their Contemporaries
Dulwich Picture Gallery, Gallery Road, Dulwich Village, London
www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

Until 13 April
Victorian Celebrities in Photographs: G. F. Watts and his World
Guildhall Art Gallery, London
www.guildhall-art-gallery.org.uk

Until 24 February
My Boy Jack
Imperial War Museum0, London
Exploring the story of John Kipling, only son of Rudyard Kipling and great-nephew of Edward Burne-Jones, killed at the Battle of Loos
also Weapons of Mass Communication: War Posters
Until 30 March
www.iwm.org.uk

Until 1 June
William Blake: "I still go on / Till the Heavens and Earth are gone"
Tate Britain, London
www.tate.org.uk

Until 17 February
The Holiness of Beauty: G. F. Bodley (1827-1907) and His Circle
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Location: Architecture, Room 128a. Marking the centenary of the death of the architect G. F. Bodley - drawings and works by him and his collaborators, including William Morris.
www.vam.ac.uk

Until 6 April
Pre-Raphaelite Drawings
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Norwich, Norfolk
This delightful exhibition showcases the best of the Pre-Raphaelite collection held by the National Museums Liverpool. Works by the most popular Pre-Raphaelite artists are on display including Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Edward Burne-Jones. Pre-Raphaelite Drawings offers a rare opportunity to view fascinating works, too delicate for permanent display. The artworks include pencil, charcoal, chalk, ink and watercolour drawings. They are a mixture of preparatory studies for well-known paintings as well as stand-alone works.
www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk

Until 25 May
Artful Practice: Architectural Drawings by Richard Norman Shaw RA (1831-1912)
Royal Academy of Arts, London
Norman Shaw changed the face of English architecture in the last third of the 19th century. Working in the spirit of local vernacular building traditions rather than to the letter of textbook historicism, he paved the way for the so-called free-style of the Arts and Crafts movement in the 1890s. Developers of suburban housing have endlessly recycled the shadow of Shaw’s redefinition of English architecture well into our own day, to the point of parody and beyond. However to gain a sense of the impact that Shaw wanted his best work to have on posterity one need look no further than the magnificent series of pen-and-ink perspectives that he put into the Academy’s annual exhibition in the 1870s and ’80s. A selection of these, nearly all in his own hand, forms the core of this display, which is drawn almost entirely from the large collection of Shaw’s office drawings bequeathed to the Royal Academy by the architect’s son in 1959.
www.royalacademy.org.uk

Until 9 June
Michael Cardew: Ceramics from the Winchcombe Period (1926-1939)
Blackwell, The Arts & Crafts House, Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria
www.blackwell.org.uk

17 June - 2 November
Fantasies in Clay: Martin Brothers Art Pottery (1873-1923)
Blackwell, The Arts & Crafts House, Bowness-on-Windermere, Cumbria
www.blackwell.org.uk

Lectures and Conferences

Wednesday, 6 March, 7 for 7.30 p. m.
Art Wealth and Riches
Friends Meeting House, Mount Street, Manchester
A lecture originally given by William Morris at the Royal Institution, Manchester on 6 March 1883, delivered by Paul O'Keefe in Victorian dress. £5, including refreshments. No booking required.

25 May - 5 June
Arts and Crafts Gardens of Southern England and South Wales
This Arts and Crafts Garden Tour will be led by author Judith Tankard of the Landscape Institute, Harvard University, and numbers are limited to 18 participants.
www.jeffsainsburytours.com/Arts+Crafts2008.html

4-12 June
The Great Edwardian Gardens of Harold Peto
This Arts and Crafts Garden Tour will be led by Robin Whalley, a leading authority on Victorian and early 20thC gardens and author of the new book The Great Edwardian Gardens of Harold Peto.
www.jeffsainsburytours.com/Peto2008.html<p> Saturday, 14 June, 11 a. m. Edward Burne-Jones: Style, Substance and Spirit
Hilary Underwood
Talisman Art Lectures, Francis Holland School, Ivor Place, London
£12. with refreshments. Seats must be booked in advance. 020 8208 1567, talks@talisman-fine-art.com

Saturday, 12 July, 7.30 p. m.
William Morris . . . Not Overtaken by History
Peter Cormack
News from Nowhere Club, Epicentre, West St., Leytonstone, London
Regular interesting lectures, including a special talk for the Leytonstone Festival given by Peter Cormack, formerly Keeper of the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, where he worked for over 30 years. Like Morris himself, Peter is a member of the Society of Antiquaries and is the Society’s Honorary Curator of Kelmscott Manor. 7.30 p. m. buffet, 8 p. m. talk and discussion.

18 - 20 July
Artistry and Industry: Representations of Creative Labour in Literature and the Visual Arts ca. 1830-1900
University of Exeter
This interdisciplinary conference seeks to examine the nature and representation of artistic labour within the nineteenth century's expanding print and visual culture. Its focus will be on artistic "industry" in a variety of forms including, but not limited to, the nature of artistic work as conceptualised by writers and artists, artistry as a profession, art as commodity. Drawing together contributors from literature, art history, history, drama and beyond, the conference will also examine the connections and the separations between those artistic milieux regarded as high culture (painting, sculpture, literature) and those classed as "art-industry," such as pottery painting, art needlework or engraving – or even hackwork (such as Grub Street writing). Organizers: Sunie Fletcher, Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi, Sally Anne Huxtable, Patricia Zakreski
artindustry@exeter.ac.uk