|
Showing 1 - 7 of
7 matches in All Departments
William Morris's interests were wide-ranging: he was a poet,
writer, political and social activist, conservationist and
businessman, as well as a brilliant and original designer and
manufacturer. This book explores the balance between Morris's
various spheres of activity and influence, places his art in the
context of its time and explores his ongoing and far-reaching
legacy. A pioneer of the Arts & Crafts Movement, William Morris
(1834-1896) is one of the most influential designers of all time.
Morris turned the tide of Victorian England against an increasingly
industrialized manufacturing process towards a rediscovered respect
for the skill of the maker. Morris's whole approach still resonates
today, and his designs are popular and much admired. Published to
mark the 125th anniversary of Morris's death, this book includes
contributions from a wide range of Morris experts, with chapters on
painting, church decoration and stained glass, interior decoration,
furniture, tiles and tableware, wallpaper, textiles, calligraphy
and publishing. Additional materials include a contextualized
chronology of Morris's life and a list of public collections around
the world where examples of Morris's work may be seen today. This
study is a comprehensive, fully illustrated exploration of a great
thinker and artist, and essential reading for anyone interested in
the history of design. With 668 illustrations in colour
The Simple Life (1981) was Fiona MacCarthy's first book, written
while she was the Guardian's design correspondent (and before her
acclaimed lives of Eric Gill, William Morris, and Edward
Burne-Jones.) It tells of a venturesome effort to enact an
Edwardian Utopia in a small town in the Cotswolds. The leader of
this endeavour was progressive-minded architect Charles Robert
Ashbee, who in 1888 founded the Guild of Handicraft in Whitechapel,
specialising in metalworking, jewellery and furniture and informed
by the desire to improve society. In 1902 Ashbee and his East
London comrades removed the Guild to Chipping Campden in
Gloucestershire, hoping to construct a socialistic rural idyll.
MacCarthy explores the impact of the experiment on the lives of the
group and on the little town they occupied - tracing the Guild's
fortunes and misfortunes, hilarious and grave, and the many fellow
idealists and artists who were involved (among them William Morris,
Roger Fry, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb.)
Winner of the Wolfson History Prize, and described by A.S.Byatt as
'one of the finest biographies ever published', this is Fiona
MacCarthy's magisterial biography of William Morris, legendary
designer and father of the Victorian Arts and Crafts movement.
'Thrilling, absorbing and majestic.' Independent 'Wonderfully
ambitious ... The definitive Morris biography.' Sunday Times
'Delicious and intelligent, full of shining detail and mysteries
respected.' Daily Telegraph 'Oh, the careful detail of this
marvellous book! . . . A model of scholarly biography'. New
Statesman Since his death in 1896, William Morris has been
celebrated as a giant of the Victorian era. But his genius was so
multifaceted and so profound that its full extent has rarely been
grasped. Many people may find it hard to believe that the greatest
English designer of his time - possibly of all time - could also be
internationally renowned as a founder of the socialist movement,
and ranked as a poet with Tennyson and Browning. In her definitive
biography - insightful, comprehensive, addictively readable - the
award-winning Fiona MacCarthy gives us a richly detailed portrait
of Morris's complex character for the first time, shedding light on
his immense creative powers as artist and designer of furniture,
fabrics, wallpaper, stained glass, tapestry, and books; his role as
a poet, novelist and translator; on his psychology and his
emotional life; his frenetic activities as polemicist and reformer;
and his remarkable circle of friends, literary, artistic and
political, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones.
It is a masterpiece of biographical art.
* A Times and New Statesman Book of the Year * * BBC Radio 4 Book
of the Week * * Illustrated with over 130 colour photographs and
drawings * 'A masterpiece.' Edmund de Waal 'Commanding,
intelligent, gripping.' The Times From 1910 to 1930 Gropius was at
the very centre of European modern art and design, as the founder
of the German art school, the Bauhaus. Yet Gropius's beliefs and
affiliations left him little choice but to leave Germany when
Hitler came to power. In this riveting book, Fiona MacCarthy draws
on new research to re-evaluate Gropius's work and life. From his
shattering experiences in the First World War to his turbulent
marriage to the notorious Alma Mahler and the tragic early death of
their daughter, MacCarthy leads us through his disorientating years
in London, to his final peaceful and productive life in America.
This is biography at its finest and most vivid.
A gorgeous new edition of Fiona MacCarthy's ground-breaking
biography of the artist-craftsman, typographer, and lettercutter,
master wood-engraver, and sculptor: Eric Gill. 'Fascinating on the
work and fair to the man; a brilliant biography.' Independent
'Scrupulous and sensitive . . . A wise and foolish English
eccentric in full glory.' Observer 'Full of insight and interest .
. . A considerable addition to modern biography.' Times Eric Gill
was the greatest English artist-craftsman of the twentieth century:
a typographer and lettercutter of genius and a master in the art of
sculpture and wood-engraving. He was a devoted family man and key
figure in three Catholic art and craft communities: yet he also
believed in complete sexual freedom. In her controversial, landmark
biography, originally published in 1989, celebrated biographer
Fiona MacCarthy delves into the complex, dark, and contradictory
sides of the man and the artist for the first time - and the result
is his definitive portrait.
Once upon a time the well-bred daughters of Britain's aristocracy
took part in a female rite of passage: curtseying to the Queen. But
in 1958 this ritual was coming to an end. Under pressure to shine -
not least from their mothers - the girls became the focus for
newspaper diarists and society photographers in a party season that
stretched for months among the great houses of England, Ireland and
Scotland. Fiona MacCarthy traces the stories of the girls who
curtseyed that year, and shows how their lives were to open out in
often very unexpected ways - as Britain itself changed irreversibly
during the 1960s, and the certainties of the old order came to an
end.
Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, this is the
biography of celebrated nineteenth-century artist Edward
Burne-Jones, who - with William Morris - connects Victorian and
modern art. 'A triumph of biographical art.' Independent
'Magnificent.' Guardian 'Rarely are biographies both as
authoritative and engaging as this.' Literary Review The angels on
our Christmas cards, the stained glass in our churches, the great
paintings in our galleries - Edward Burne-Jones's work is all
around us. The most admired British artist of his generation, he
was a leading figure with Oscar Wilde in the aesthetic movement of
the 1880s, inventing what became an iconic 'Burne-Jones look'.
Widely recognised as the bridge between Victorian and modern art,
he influenced not just his immediate circle but European artists
such as Klimt and Picasso. In this gripping book, award-winning
biographer Fiona MacCarthy dramatically re-evaluates his art and
life - his battle against vicious public hostility, the romantic
susceptibility to female beauty that would inspire his work but
ruin his marriage, his ill health and depressive sensibility, and
the devastating rift with his great friend and collaborator,
William Morris, when their views on art and politics diverged.
Blending new research with a fresh historical perspective, The Last
Pre-Raphaelite tells the extraordinary story of Burne-Jones: a
radical artist, landmark of Victorian society - and peculiarly
captivating man.
|
|