William Morris Was Right

We restart our annual newsletter with a thought for the figure who laid the foundations of a critical and radical way of thinking that still guides us today, almost two centuries later, perhaps now more than ever.

William Morris was the first to bring together the continuous, almost magical transformation of nature with a methodology that could be taken up by human beings, understood, learned, and turned into ornament, without ever separating the two spheres.

Morris always positioned himself precisely between the machine and the rhythms of the world. His radicalism was always social, and this is why his philosophy resonates so strongly today in the hands of those who live by and respect the teachings of Arts and Crafts.

Without Morris, we would never have had the Omega Workshops; without Morris, there would have been no Atelier Martine or Wiener Werkstätte; without Morris, we might have abandoned the idea of slowness as a necessary condition for creating beautiful artefacts.

The idea of a slow laboratory, grounded in the work of the hands yet fully aware of the infinite potential of the machine, is an ethos we carry with us every day.

Rose and Thistle, furnishing fabric, William Morris, 1881, England. Museum no. T.634-1919. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Jeremy Deller knows this well. Winner of the Turner Prize in 2004 and representative of Great Britain at the 2013 Venice Biennale, it is precisely from that Biennale that he brings William Morris back to life, helping us to face a complex contemporary moment that, today more than ever, needs him.

Last July, during The Triumph of Art in Trafalgar Square, a large parade crossed the square, with many participants waving Deller’s manifesto flag reading “William Morris Was Right,” involving the William Morris Gallery.

We celebrate William Morris to begin the year with a selection of our products that resonate with his way of thinking about life.