thumb|A Morris & Co. [[stained-glass window to a design by Edward Burne-Jones installed in Malmesbury Abbey. The window shows characteristic themes based on Arthurian legends.]]

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (1861–1875) was a furnishings and decorative arts manufacturer and retailer founded by the artist and designer William Morris with friends from the Pre-Raphaelites. With its successor Morris & Co. (1875–1940) the firm's medieval-inspired aesthetic and respect for hand-craftsmanship and traditional textile arts had a profound influence on the decoration of churches and houses into the early 20th century.

Although its most influential period was during the flourishing of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the 1880s and 1890s, Morris & Co. remained in operation in a limited fashion from World War I until its closure in 1940. The firm's designs are still sold today under licences given to Sanderson & Sons, part of the Walker Greenbank wallpaper and fabrics business (which owns the "Morris & Co." brand,) and to Liberty of London.

Early years

left|thumb|150px|Design for Trellis wallpaper, 1862

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., "Fine Art Workmen in Painting, Carving, Furniture and the Metals", was jointly created by Morris, Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Charles Faulkner, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, P. P. Marshall, and Philip Webb in 1861 to create and sell medieval-inspired, handcrafted items for the home. The prospectus set forth that the firm would undertake carving, stained glass, metal-work, paper-hangings, chintzes (printed fabrics), and carpets. The first headquarters of the firm were at 8 Red Lion Square in London. On its non-ecclesiastical side, the product line was extended to include, besides painted windows and mural decoration, furniture, metal and glass wares, cloth and paper wall-hangings, embroideries, jewellery, woven and knotted carpets, silk damasks, and tapestries.

Morris was producing repeating patterns for wallpaper as early as 1862, and some six years later he designed his first pattern specifically for fabric printing. As in so many other areas that interested him, Morris chose to work with the ancient technique of hand woodblock printing in preference to the roller printing which had almost completely replaced it for commercial uses.

Reorganization and expansion

In August 1874, Morris determined to restructure the partnership, generating a dispute with Marshall, Rossetti, and Madox Brown over the return on their shares. The company was dissolved and reorganized under Morris's sole ownership as Morris & Co. on 31 March 1875. The complex, on , included several buildings and a dyeworks, and the various buildings were soon adapted for stained-glass, textile printing, and fabric- and carpet-weaving.

In 1879, Morris had taught himself tapestry weaving in the medieval style and set up a tapestry workshop with his apprentice John Henry Dearle at Queen Square. Dearle executed Morris and Co.'s first figural tapestry from a design by Walter Crane in 1883. Dearle was soon responsible for the training of all tapestry apprentices in the expanded workshop at Merton Abbey, and partnered with Morris on designing details such as fabric patterns and floral backgrounds for tapestries based on figure drawings or cartoons by Burne-Jones (some of them repurposed from stained glass cartoons). Following this, two significant secular commissions helped to establish the firm's reputation in the late 1860s: a royal project at St. James's Palace and the "green dining room" at the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) of 1867. The green dining room (preserved as the Morris Room at the V&A) featured stained glass windows and panel figures by Burne-Jones, panels with branches of fruit and flowers by Morris, and olive branches and a frieze by Philip Webb. The St. James's commission comprised decorative schemes for the Armoury and the Tapestry Room, and included panels of stylized floral patterns painted on ceilings, cornices, dadoes, windows, and doors.

In 1871, Morris & Co. were responsible for the windows at All Saints church in the village of Wilden near to Stourport-on-Severn. They were designed by Burne-Jones for Alfred Baldwin, his wife's brother-in-law.

Standen near East Grinstead, West Sussex, was designed between 1892 and 1894 by Philip Webb for a prosperous London solicitor, James Beale, his wife Margaret, and their family. It is decorated with Morris carpets, fabrics and wallpapers.

In the 21st century, the State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia) curators made a sensational discovery: in 1895, Morris & Co supplied the "Garden Tulip" wallpaper to Emperor Nicholas II for his private rooms in the Imperial Winter Palace. This was one of William Morris's last court commissions before his death. The authors of the first article in 2004, Maria Khaltunen and Rifat Gafifullin, established this fact based on archival materials. But in 2016-2017, Nicholas Onegin continued and significantly expanded the research: together with Walker Greenbank PLC's staff, they visited William Morris's archives and factory, where they found authentic printing blocks from the 1880s used to create the wallpaper for Nicholas II. Thanks to this research, the exact article number of the wallpaper and its color scheme were determined. The results of this unique study were published by Nicholas Onegin in scientific articles in various journals (in Russian and English languages) and on television programs featuring Dr. Onegin . In 2025, at the "Morris Mania" exhibition in William Morris Gallery in London, the Winter Palace wallpaper story (based on Nicholas Onegin's articles) gained even wider publicity .

Stanmore Hall was the last major decorating commission executed by Morris & Co. before Morris's death in 1896. It was also the most extensive commission undertaken by the firm, and included a series of tapestries based on the story of the Holy Grail for the dining room, to which Morris devoted his energies, the rest of the work being executed under the direction of Dearle.

Other Morris & Co. commissions include the ceiling within the dining room of Charleville Forest Castle, Ireland; interiors of Bullers Wood House, now Bullers Wood School in Chislehurst, Kent; and stained glass windows at Adcote.

Last stages

thumb|Textile printing at [[Merton Abbey Mills|Merton Abbey (), from a booklet commemorating the 50th anniversary of the firm, 1911.]]

As Morris pursued other interests, notably socialism and the Kelmscott Press, day-to-day work at the firm was delegated. Morris's daughter May became the director of the embroidery department in 1885, when she was in her early twenties. Dearle, who had begun designing repeating patterns for wallpapers and textiles in the late 1880s, was head designer for the firm by 1890, handling interior design commissions and supervising the tapestry, weaving, and fabric-printing departments at Merton Abbey.

Dearle's contributions to textile design were long overshadowed by Morris. Dearle exhibited his designs under the Morris name rather than his own in the Arts and Crafts Exhibitions and the major Morris retrospective of 1899,. Even today many Dearle designs, and others created by designers working at the firm, May Morris and Kathleen Kersey among them, are popularly offered as "William Morris" patterns.

On Morris's death in 1896, Dearle became the art director of the firm, which changed its name again, to Morris & Co. Decorators Ltd., in 1905. during Morris's lifetime; many of the patterns still available are offered in both forms by their current manufacturers.

<gallery mode=packed heights=180>

File:Morris Jasmine Wallpaper 1872.png|Jasmine wallpaper, designed by Morris 1872

File:Morris Acanthus Wallpaper 1875.jpg|Acanthus wallpaper, designed by Morris 1875

File:Morris Honeysuckle Fabric 1876.png|Honeysuckle fabric, designed by Morris 1876

File:Morris Grafton wallpaper c 1883.jpg|Grafton wallpaper, Morris, 1883

File:Morris Evenlode textile drawing.jpg|Design for Evenlode textile, Morris, 1883

File:Morris Evenlode printed textile.jpg|Evenlode indigo discharge and block-printed textile, Morris, 1883

File:Morris Willow Bough 1887.jpg|Willow Bough wallpaper, Morris, 1887, repurposed for fabric c. 1895

File:Artichoke wallpaper Morris and Co J H Dearle.jpg|Artichoke wallpaper, designed by John Henry Dearle, 1897

</gallery>

Woven textiles

<gallery mode=packed heights=180>

File:Morris and Co Anemone 1876.jpg|Anemone jacquard-woven silk and wool or silk damask, Morris, 1876

File:Morris Peacock and Dragon Fabric 1878 v2.jpg|Peacock and Dragon woven woollen fabric, Morris, 1878

File:Morris Granada velvet.jpg|Granada woven silk velvet brocaded with gilt thread and blue areas block-printed, Morris, 1884

File:Morris Ispahan textile c 1888.jpg|Ispahan woven woollen fabric, Morris, 1888

</gallery>

Embroidery

<gallery mode=packed heights=180>

File:Art Needlework Morris Design Detail.jpg|Detail of Flowerpot embroidery, 1890

File:Embroidered Panel Morris and Company.jpg|Portion of Artichoke embroidered panel, 1890

File:Embroidered Screen J H Dearle.jpg|Embroidered screen, designed Dearle, between 1885-1910

File:Morris_%26_COMPANY,_London_-_Acanthus_porti%C3%A8re_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg|Acanthus portière, silk embroidery on linen, 1890s

</gallery>

Tapestry

thumb|450px|center|The Vision of the Holy Grail or The Attainment tapestry. Overall design by Morris, figures by Burne-Jones, and backgrounds by Dearle Morris and Company, 1890

See also

  • Art needlework
  • British and Irish stained glass (1811–1918)
  • Decorative Designers
  • May Morris
  • Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
  • Stained glass
  • Victorian Era
  • William Morris wallpaper designs

Notes

References

  • Fairclough, Oliver, and Emmeline Leary, Textiles by William Morris and Morris & Co. 1861-1940, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1981,
  • Mackail, J. W., The Life of William Morris in two volumes, London, New York and Bombay: Longmans, Green and Co., 1899
  • Google Books edition of Volume I and Volume II (1911 reprint) retrieved 16 August 2008
  • Mackail, J. W., "William Morris," in The Dictionary of National Biography. Supp. vol. 3 (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1901), pp.&nbsp;197–203, reproduced at the William Morris Society
  • Parry, Linda, "Textiles", in The Earthly Paradise: Arts and Crafts by William Morris and his Circle in Canadian Collections, edited by Katharine A. Lochnan, Douglas E. Schoenherr, and Carole Silver, Key Porter Books, 1993,
  • Parry, Linda, ed.: William Morris, Abrams, 1996,
  • Parry, Linda: William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement: A Sourcebook, New York, Portland House, 1989
  • Parry, Linda: William Morris Textiles, New York, Viking Press, 1983,
  • Parry, Linda: Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement, Thames and Hudson, revised edition 2005,
  • Waggoner, Diane: The Beauty of Life: William Morris & the Art of Design, Thames and Hudson, 2003,

Further reading

  • Morris & Company, A Brief Sketch of the Morris Movement and of the Firm Founded by William Morris to Carry Out His Designs and the Industries Revived or Started by Him. Written to Commemorate the Firm's Fiftieth Anniversary in June 1911. Privately printed at the Chiswick Press for Morris & Company, 1911.
  • Morris & Co. by David Cody, at the Victorian Web
  • Morris & Co. windows in Cumbria and New York
  • The Vanderpoel Window in Saugerties, New York
  • Morris & Co. collection at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
  • Edward Burne-Jones, Victorian artist-dreamer, full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art