MORRIS, William

English designer, writer and activist. His importance as both a designer and propagandist for the arts cannot easily be overestimated, and his influence has continued to be felt throughout the 20th century. He was a committed Socialist whose aim was that, as in the Middle Ages, art should be for the people and by the people, a view expressed in several of his writings.

After abandoning his training as an architect, he studied painting among members of the Pre-RaphaelitesGLOSSARYA group of English artists, among them Holman Hunt, Millais and Rossetti, who in 1848 formed the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, aiming to produce work in the spirit which imbued Italian artists before Raphael's move to Rome. The movement was a mixture of romantic medievalism and the desire to return to a realistic depiction of nature, disregarding what they considered to be the arbitrary rules of academic art. These preoccupations were unified by a kind of seriousness which turned painting into a moral as well as an aesthetic act. The group also had an impact on the decorative arts through painted furniture, tapestries, stained glass and designs for fabric and wallpaper.. Taking the Medieval craft guildGLOSSARYAn association of the masters of a particular craft, trade or profession (painters, goldsmiths, surgeons, and so on) set up to protect its members' rights and interests. Such guilds existed in virtually every European city in the 16th century. The guild also monitored standards of work, acted as a court for those who brought their trade into disrepute, and provided assistance to members in need. as his model, he believed art derived from a craftsman's pleasure of work was instrumental to the rebirth of art. In 1861, he established "The Firm," a company that designed furniture, wallpaper, and textiles, which included Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown, and Burne-Jones. His concerns that the artist should understand the craft process and to honour the materials chosen was later reflected in the ideas of the Bauhaus. He created a few paintings, but produced primarily stained glass, textiles, wallpapers, and book arts.

In 1950 his home at Walthamstow became the William Morris GalleryGLOSSARYan upper story, similar to a tribune, running along the side of a building and open on one side to the interior; in a church (basilica) above the side aisles, over the ambulatory (central-plan building) and also over the west end. The gallery was used to keep certain groups of worshippers apart (women, noblemen).. The William Morris Society was founded in 1956, and it publishes a biannual journal and quarterly newsletter.