May Morris

Mary Morris ( born March 25, 1862 in Bexley, London, † October 17, 1938 in Kelmscott Manor, Oxfordshire ) was a British entrepreneur and product designer for colored and white embroidery.

Life

Mary, called May, was the younger daughter of the architect and painter William Morris (1834-1896) and his wife Jane Burden ( 1839-1914 ). Her older sister Jenny was suffering from epilepsy. May studied textile art at the South Kensington School of Design from 1880 to 1883. In 1885, Morris took over the management of the embroidery department of the company Morris & Co..

In 1886, Mary fell in love with Henry Halliday Sparling, the secretary of the Socialist League of Hammersmith. Despite the care of their mother because of his peasant origins, they were married on June 14, 1890 at the registry office of Fulham. Sparling was employed by the Kelmscott printing and they rented a house in Hammersmith Terrace 8, not far from the Kelmscott House their parents. When Mary her former love affair with George Bernard Shaw resumed and went with this on the International Socialist Workers ' Congress in Zurich, went their separate ways. In 1898 they were divorced and Mary took back to their birth name.

From 1899 to 1908 she gave lessons in embroidering both at the Central School of Arts & Crafts and the School of Art Needlework (now Royal School of Needlework ). She was also an important jewelry designer.

In 1907 she founded the Women 's Guild of Arts and remained its president until 1935.

Together with her ​​father and her husband were among the first British socialists. They put together with Eleanor Marx and Friedrich Engels, the basis for the socialist movement. After her father's death she published his novels and seals.

Emery Walker wrote on February 19, 1930 May Morris that he had once again the photos that John Parsons has made ​​for Rossetti in 1865 by her mother photographed, in order to get them. On December 1, 1933 Gordon Bottomly wrote on May Morris that he had created a photo book. He also points to the problems of his film, which is a precious document prepares, and much work has cost to get him. Album of Portraits of Mrs. William Morris ( Jane Burden ) Posed by Rossetti, 1865. Edited by Gordon Bottomly. Compiled in 1933

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Mary Morris as a young girl (1872 )

Rossetti: Alexa Wilding with Mary, depicted as an angel (1875 )