The Victorian designer,writer and social activist would be horrified at the message we are giving our children: that artistic vision counts for nothing. For him art was as essential as our freedom“Everybody ought to be taught to draw just as much as everybody ought to be taught to read and write,” said William Morris. Rather than his extensive musings on art and politics, or Morris is perhaps better known for his wallpaper and fabric designs of the late Victorian period. A revival of his work in the early 1970s was greeted enthusiastically by my family. My mother made a current cover for our battered sofa from his Woodpecker fabric and my sisters wore smock-like dresses made from his textiles. Sat on the sofa,camouflaged in Morris patterns, they nearly disappeared. The effect was heightened when my father wallpapered our living room in Peacock and Dragon. The crazy unremitting dynamism of his floral forest imagery gave me a headache.
This week the Frieze art fair opens in London. Had it been going in the 19th century, and I suspect that William Morris would maintain been there showing his work but,like many modern artists, would be wondering whether the fur coats and facelifts were really the most receptive audience for his art. Morris had reservations about the popularity of his designs. He regretted what he saw as his “ministering to the swinish luxury of the rich”. His adoption of Marxism later in life seems at odds with his entrepreneurial spirit.
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Source: theguardian.com