William morris. Let beauty rule!

We are looking forward to showing the first big exhibit in Denmark featuring the influential English artist, William Morris (1834–1896). Morris revolutionised British design, and a lot of Danes know of his patterned textiles and colourful tapestries inspired by nature that are still popular around the world.

Fewer people are aware, however, that Morris was also an author and a poet, an artisan, a printer of books, someone who loved nature and a fierce opponent of the industrialisation of the Victorian Age. As one of the leading figures behind the Arts & Crafts movement, Morris was in love with the aesthetics of the Middle Ages and the expert craftsmanship of the period. He relocated to the countryside and set up an inspirational, productive, and at times, dramatic artist collective together with some of the leading painters, artisans, architects and designers of the day. He married the group’s much courted favourite model and muse, the beautiful Jane Burden. On top of that, he was also both a successful businessman and one of England’s first socialists.

Everything that William Morris did was inspired by a revolutionary fervor. The artist strove to make the world and the lives of the people in it better through his designs – by letting beauty rule!

The exhibit features Morris’ beautiful and sensory universe of tapestries, textiles, furniture, glass mosaics, books, and so forth. As an extra bonus, it will also feature the works of his closest associates, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Philip Webb.

The exhibit has been created in collaboration with Millesgården in Stockholm, Sweden, which will be showing it in the autumn of 2018.