{"id":4618,"date":"2022-03-08T11:01:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T10:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homesandantiques.com\/?p=13980"},"modified":"2022-03-08T11:21:12","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T10:21:12","slug":"discover-the-forgotten-women-of-the-arts-and-crafts-movement","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/rss_feed\/discover-the-forgotten-women-of-the-arts-and-crafts-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Discover the forgotten women of the Arts and Crafts movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By Caroline Wheater\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 08 March 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

\u00a0<\/span>We tend to think of the Arts and Crafts movement in male terms, of William Morris<\/a>, for example, who co-founded the home furnishings company Morris & Co<\/a>; of William De Morgan<\/a>, who made lustreware ceramics; and of CR Ashbee<\/a>, who set up The Guild of Handicraft<\/a>, to name just three leading lights. But woven through this tapestry of artistic endeavour are female threads too; women whose stars are on the rise today.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Increasingly, we\u2019re uncovering the roles that women had in the iconic design firms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Morris & Co and Liberty,\u2019 says John Mackie, director of decorative arts at Lyon & Turnbull, who runs the firm\u2019s popular twice-yearly Decorative Arts: Design from 1860 sales.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\""Textile\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Textile designer and entrepreneur Annie Garnett at her spinning wheel in Windermere in 1904. Credit: Lakeland Arts<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

\u2018Within art history, since the 1980s, there\u2019s been a slow and steady resurgence of female Arts and Crafts designers,\u2019 agrees Chelsea Eves, a curator at Blackwell, the magnificent Arts and Crafts house perched above Lake Windermere in the Lake District. Two years ago, Blackwell hosted a groundbreaking exhibition on exactly this theme, \u2018Women of the Arts & Crafts Movement\u2019, to explore the female contribution to the style. \u2018Unlike the male Arts and Crafts designers, these women weren\u2019t architects, nor did they produce interior design schemes or make furniture. Instead, they played to their strengths in textiles<\/a>, embroidery, metalware, jewellery<\/a>, painting and ceramics, which they had learnt at art school or been taught as a pastime.\u2019 She cites the case of Annie Garnett from Bowness-on-Windermere, a middle-class girl who was not expected to work but who craved a creative path. After learning how to spin, weave and embroider at local classes with the curate\u2019s wife, she set up her own business in 1891, The Spinnery. Up until 1914, the highly regarded workshop produced many silk, linen and tweed fabrics, including the hand-woven silk Fritillary design for Queen Alexandra.<\/p>\n

\""Garnett\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Garnett was inspired by the flowers in her Lake District garden, as this delicate Fritillary design shows. Credit Lakeland Arts<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

May Morris<\/h2>\n
\""May\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
May Morris-credit William Morris Society<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

May Morris was equally talented and driven, putting \u2018art embroidery\u2019 on the map, and had the good fortune to be the daughter of William Morris. Free-thinking May grew up surrounded by her parents\u2019 artistic coterie of friends and, like them, she championed the nobility of craftsmanship within a highly industrialised society. A leading female light in the Arts and Crafts movement, among her many achievements was the founding of the Women\u2019s Guild of Arts<\/a> in 1907, which attracted over 100 members specialising in everything from embroidery and enamelling to stained glass and jewellery.<\/p>\n

\""May\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
May Morris embroidered the bedspread in this room at Emery Walker\u2019s home, a friend of May\u2019s father.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Morris learned embroidery at her mother Jane\u2019s knee, studying the craft further at the National Art Training School (now the Royal College of Art<\/a>) in South Kensington. The opening of art schools to women from the 1870s onwards was a crucial factor in the subsequent flowering of female talent in the Arts and Crafts movement.<\/p>\n

In 1885, at 23, she was appointed head of the Morris & Co embroidery department. Hugely inspired by Opus Anglicanum<\/i>, the richly decorative English medieval embroidery technique, she devised myriad designs, from fire screens and wall hangings to home embroidery kits, chair seats and door curtains. Her designs can be seen in Arts and Crafts houses and collections, from the modest rooms of Emery Walker\u2019s house in Hammersmith (entirely decorated in original Morris & Co wallpapers) and the William Morris Society at Kelmscott House nearby, to the grander mansions of Kelmscott Manor in Gloucestershire and Wightwick Manor in the Midlands.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\""May\u2019s\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
May\u2019s Orange Tree embroidery, which she worked on in the late 1890s.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

May developed her own style, a softer, more feminine take on flora than that of her father. Whereas William favoured classical acanthus and pomegranates in his designs, May depicted the flowers of the English countryside for hers, sketching directly from nature.<\/p>\n

\u2018May Morris had raw talent and was able to produce designs that are still being used today,\u2019 says Chelsea Eves, referencing the Morris & Co Melsetter wallpaper collection inspired by her embroideries (available at Style Library). Her embroidery designs for Morris & Co can be found at auction, too, for upwards of \u00a3800 for a silkwork panel. When the landmark exhibition \u2018May Morris: Art & Life\u2019, mounted by the William Morris Gallery in 2017, is restaged at the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, she is sure to gain more fans.<\/p>\n

Mary Seton Watts<\/h2>\n
\""Mary\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Mary Seton Watts-credit Watts Gallery & Chapel<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

In the early 20th century, the artist and designer Mary Seton Watts was one of the founder members of May\u2019s Women\u2019s Guild of Arts. Like Morris, she attended the National Art Training School then the Slade School of Art where she learnt clay modelling. In 1886, she married the Victorian painter George Frederic Watts<\/a> and five years later they built a house, Limnerslease, in Compton, Surrey.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\""Britain\u2019s\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Britain\u2019s answer to the Sistine Chapel, Watts Chapel\u2019s intricately decorated ceiling was designed by Mary Seton Watts.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Seton Watts began to make her mark in 1895, when she offered to design a new mortuary chapel for the village and set up night classes to teach the villagers how to make terracotta<\/a> tiles for it. She believed providing \u2018art for all\u2019 was a way of enriching lives, and her vision is encapsulated at the Watts Cemetery Chapel, a Grade I-listed redbrick building that is a tiny wonder of terracotta decoration and murals.<\/p>\n

Mary Seton Watts didn\u2019t stop there, however, and turned this artistic venture into a pottery. \u2018The Compton Pottery grew out of these night classes and Seton Watts built a phenomenal business making devotional figures, bowls, painted panels and terracotta garden pots. She was one of the first women to be publicly credited, as \u2018Mrs GF Watts\u2019, in a Liberty catalogue,\u2019 says Chelsea. The pottery continued until the 1950s and pieces pop up at auction from time to time \u2013 devotional figures for \u00a3200 to \u00a3700 or a pair of terracotta pots for \u00a35,000.<\/p>\n

\""Mary\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Mary Seton Watts and her husband George built the Compton Pottery in 1901, producing ornamental Compton ware, such as this bowl.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Macdonald sisters<\/h2>\n

Scotland was a hotbed of female talent, as exemplified by the Macdonald sisters. The girls attended the Glasgow School of Art in 1891, afterwards setting up studio together at 128 Hope Street. Here, they made a living from their paintings, copper metalware and gesso panels, but also gave lessons to other women.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While at art school, the sisters met their husbands-to-be, the architectural students Charles Rennie Mackintosh who married Margaret, and Herbert MacNair who wed Frances. They were dubbed \u2018The Four\u2019 and established the Glasgow Style, but it was Margaret and Charles who became pre-eminent. \u2018Margaret worked closely with Charles Rennie Mackintosh on Hill House and the Willow Tea Rooms in Glasgow, but historically their output was credited to him,\u2019 says Chelsea Eves.<\/p>\n

\""Sinuous\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Sinuous panels designed by Margaret Macdonald for The Hill House in Helensburgh.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Margaret brought softness to their designs, choosing pastel colours and detailed finishes that complemented the masculine lines of Charles. \u2018He was a genius, and he tends to get the plaudits but they were collaborating and innovating together,\u2019 says John Mackie. \u2018He recognised Margaret\u2019s contribution to his work, describing her as a catalyst and muse.\u2019<\/p>\n

In 2008 Margaret\u2019s reputation was enhanced when her painting The White Rose and the Red Rose<\/i> made \u00a31.7m at Christie\u2019s, a record for a Scottish artwork. Ever since, collectors have been snapping up the few Margaret works in private hands. \u2018Watercolours are rare and cost \u00a350,000 to \u00a3100,000, gesso panels similar, while most of the sisters\u2019 metalwares are in museums now,\u2019 says John. It\u2019s a fitting place for them to be.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\""Sleep\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
Sleep is a wonderfully ethereal watercolour by Frances Macdonald MacNair. It sold for \u00a354,050 at Lyon & Turnbull in 2012.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

The Scottish Trio<\/h1>\n

Phoebe Anna Traquair<\/h3>\n
The artist Phoebe Anna Traquair created murals, enamel jewellery, and enamel panels, and her work can be bought at auction today from \u00a36,000 to \u00a350,000. See her magnificent murals at the Mansfield Traquair Centre \u2013 a former Catholic Apostolic Church in Edinburgh\u2019s New Town where, in 1892, Traquair was commissioned to paint biblical scenes.<\/div>\n
\""PHOEBE\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
PHOEBE ANNA TRAQUAIR (1852-1936) \u2018THE KISS\u2019, CIRCA 1903 credit Lyon & Turnbull<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Ann Macbeth<\/h3>\n
Ann Macbeth, who attended the Glasgow School of Art after the Macdonald sisters, is another well regarded artist whose textiles, such as dining tablecloths and the like, can still be found in the high hundreds of pounds at auction.<\/div>\n
\""ANN\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
ANN MACBETH (1875-1948) AND HELEN STEVEN MACAREE (1891-1941) GLASGOW SCHOOL EMBROIDERED APPLIQU\u00c9 PANEL, CIRCA 1900 credit Lyon & Turnbull<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Jessie M King<\/h3>\n
The artworks of illustrator Jessie M King are another affordable option, owing to her prolific output. Though her early watercolours in pen and ink on vellum cost from \u00a35,000 to \u00a310,000 at auction, her later, looser style of watercolours can be picked up for \u00a31,000 to \u00a310,000. She also designed jewellery for Liberty.<\/div>\n
\""JESSIE\"<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
JESSIE MARION KING (SCOTTISH 1875-1949) O MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED RED ROSE \u2013 LYON & TURNBULL<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div><\/body><\/html>\n
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By Caroline Wheater Published: Tuesday, 08 March 2022 at 12:00 am \u00a0We tend to think of the Arts and Crafts movement in male terms, of William Morris, for example, who co-founded the home furnishings company Morris & Co; of William De Morgan, who made lustreware ceramics; and of CR Ashbee, who set up The Guild […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":4619,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"9"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/03\/discover-the-forgotten-women-of-the-arts-and-crafts-movement.jpg",1000,727,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/03\/discover-the-forgotten-women-of-the-arts-and-crafts-movement-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/03\/discover-the-forgotten-women-of-the-arts-and-crafts-movement-300x218.jpg",300,218,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/03\/discover-the-forgotten-women-of-the-arts-and-crafts-movement-768x558.jpg",768,558,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/03\/discover-the-forgotten-women-of-the-arts-and-crafts-movement.jpg",800,582,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/03\/discover-the-forgotten-women-of-the-arts-and-crafts-movement.jpg",1000,727,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/03\/discover-the-forgotten-women-of-the-arts-and-crafts-movement.jpg",1000,727,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Caroline Wheater Published: Tuesday, 08 March 2022 at 12:00 am \u00a0We tend to think of the Arts and Crafts movement in male terms, of William Morris, for example, who co-founded the home furnishings company Morris & Co; of William De Morgan, who made lustreware ceramics; and of CR Ashbee, who set up The Guild…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/4618"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}