Woman carrying a bowl of fruit; cartoon for domestic stained glass

Details

Date: c. 1891
Dimensions: 101.6 x 68
Object Type: design
Material: pencil, ink and watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A37
Artist: Dearle, John Henry (1859 - 1932)
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

John Henry Dearle joined Morris’s employment in 1878 as an assistant in the Oxford Street showroom of Morris & Co., before being transferred to the glass painters’ studio and becoming an apprentice tapestry weaver. He eventually went on to become Art Director of Morris & Co. upon Morris’s death in 1896. After many years of training alongside Morris, Dearle began creating distinctive patterns in his own right. ‘Daffodil’ is one of his most successful early patterns. It combines the strong diagonal repeats favoured by Morris with attractive floral motifs. ‘Daffodil’ was extremely commercially popular and was used in many interiors designed by Morris & Co.

This design was for a printed cotton which was to be created using woodblocks. To the right of the image there is an instruction to the blockmaker. The William Morris Gallery also holds 10 woodblocks for the design.

Details

Date: 1886
Dimensions: 101.6 x 68.6
Object Type: design
Material: watercolour on paper
Catalogue number: A30
Artist: Morris, William, 1834, 1896
Credit notes: WMG purchase, 1940

One of the more ‘formal’ of Morris’s 1880s wallpapers, ‘Lily and Pomegranate’ resembles some of the historic textiles which Morris studied at the South Kensington Museum. The dotted background is a favourite device of Morris’s , found in both his wallpapers and textiles, and one which he enjoyed painting in his designs. When a friend asked him why he did not hand over such mechanical work to an assistant, Morris replied ‘After taking all the trouble to draw it, do you think I’d be such a fool as not to do the dots?’

Details

Date: c.1929-30
Dimensions: 137.3 x 201
Object Type: drawing
Material: chalk on paper
Catalogue number: BrD4
Designer: Brangwyn, Frank, Sir (1867 - 1956)
Credit notes: Brangwyn gift, 1936

Brangwyn was best known during his lifetime for his mural painting, particularly those commissioned by John D Rockefeller Junior to decorate the entrance to the RCA Building, the centrepiece of the Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. The skyscraper, named after the Radio Corporation of America, housed the famous NBC studios known as ‘Radio City’.

Rockefeller also commissioned Diego Riviera and Jose Maria Sert to contribute murals. Brangwyn contributed four murals on the theme of The Evolution of Man: Man Labouring; Man the Creator; Man the Master; Man’s Ultimate Destiny.

This is the ‘cartoon’, or design, for the third of Brangwyn’s murals. It is ‘squared-up’ to make it easier to enlarge to the size of the final work, which Brangwyn painted on a canvas measuring almost 5 x 7 metres before shipping it to New York. They were painted in monochrome to harmonise with the black marble walls and ivory-coloured ceiling.

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