East Grinsted, UK.- Standen House opens its doors to the largest exhibition it has ever mounted and offers a unique opportunity to see a large collection of the De Morgans’s work outside of London. The exhibition will present 40 ceramics by William de Morgan and 7 major paintings and associated drawings by his wife Evelyn. The couple both used the sea as a motif in their work and the exhibition draws inspiration from this theme; William often included fish and sea monsters, while Evelyn’s paintings depict sea nymphs and mermaids. William de Morgan was commissioned to decorate P&O cruise liners with his elaborate sea themed ceramic panels – one of which the Art Fund helped acquire for the De Morgan Centre in 2006. The magnificent Galleon tile panel is one of the centre pieces of the exhibition and consists of forty square tiles, representing a colourful and exotic scene of sailing ships, birds and sea creatures in a tropical island setting. “The De Morgans and the Sea” is on view at Standen House until October 30th.
William Frend De Morgan (16 November 1839 – 15 January 1917) was an English potter and tile designer. A lifelong friend of William Morris, he designed tiles, stained glass and furniture for Morris & Co. from 1863 to 1872. His tiles are often based on medieval designs or Persian patterns, and he experimented with innovative glazes and firing techniques. Galleons and fish were popular motifs, as were “fantastical” birds and other animals. Many of De Morgan’s tile designs were planned to create intricate patterns when several tiles were laid together. Born in London, the son of the distinguished mathematician Augustus De Morgan and his highly educated wife, De Morgan was always supported in his desire to become an artist. At the age of twenty he entered the Royal Academy schools, but he was swiftly disillusioned with the establishment; then he met William Morris, and through him the Pre-Raphaelite circle. Soon De Morgan began experimenting with stained glass, ventured into pottery in 1863, and by 1872 had shifted his interest wholly to ceramics. In 1872, De Morgan set up a pottery works in Chelsea where he stayed through 1881 — his most fruitful decade as an art potter. The arts and crafts ideology he was exposed to through his friendship with Morris and his own insistent curiosity, led De Morgan to begin to explore every technical aspect of his craft. He soon rejected the use of blank commercial tiles, preferring to make his own biscuit, which he admired for its irregularities and better resistance to moisture. His inventive streak led him to spend hours designing a new duplex bicycle gear and also lured him into complex studies of the chemistry of glazes, methods of firing, and pattern transfer.
De Morgan was particularly drawn to Eastern tiles. Around 1873–1874, he made a striking breakthrough by rediscovering the technique of lustre ware (characterized by a reflective, metallic surface) found in Hispano-Moresque pottery and Italian maiolica. Nor was his interest in the East limited to glazing techniques, but it permeated his notions of design and colour, as well. As early as 1875, he began to work in earnest with a “Persian” palette: dark blue, turquoise, manganese purple, green, Indian red, and lemon yellow, Study of the motifs of what he referred to as “Persian” ware (and what we know today as fifteenth-and-sixteenth century Iznik ware), profoundly influenced his unmistakable style, in which fantastic creatures entwined with rhythmic geometric motifs float under luminous glazes. The pottery works was always beset by financial problems, despite repeated cash injections from his wife, the pre-Raphaelite painter Evelyn Pickering de Morgan, and a partnership with the architect Halsey Ricardo. This partnership was associated with a move for the factory from Merton Abbey to Fulham in 1888. During the Fulham period De Morgan mastered many of the technical aspects of his work that had previously been elusive, including complex lustres and deep, intense underglaze painting that did not run during firing. However, this did not guarantee financial success, and in 1907 William De Morgan left the pottery, which continued under the Passenger brothers, the leading painters at the works. “All my life I have been trying to make beautiful things,” he said at the time, “and now that I can make them nobody wants them.” William De Morgan died in London in 1917, of trench fever, and was buried in Brookwood Cemetery. Collections of De Morgan’s work exist in many museums, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the William Morris Gallery in London, a substantial and representative collection in Birmingham, and a small but well-chosen collection along with much other pottery at Norwich. His dragon charger is in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery in New Zealand.
Evelyn De Morgan (30 August 1855–2 May 1919) was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter. She was born Evelyn Pickering. Her parents were of upper middle class. Her father was Percival Pickering QC, the Recorder of Pontefract. Her mother was Anna Maria Wilhelmina Spencer Stanhope, the sister of the artist John Roddam Spencer Stanhope and a descendant of Coke of Norfolk who was an Earl of Leicester. Evelyn was educated at home and started drawing lessons when she was 15. On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Evelyn recorded in her diary, “Art is eternal, but life is short…” “I will make up for it now, I have not a moment to lose.” She went on to persuade her parents to let her go to art school. At first they discouraged it, but in 1873 she was enrolled at the Slade School of Art. Her uncle, John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, was a great influence to her works. Evelyn often visited him in Florence where he lived. This also enabled her to study the great artists of the Renaissance; she was particularly fond of the works of Botticelli. This influenced her to move away from the classical subjects favoured by the Slade school and to make her own style. In 1887, she married the ceramicist William De Morgan. They lived together in London until he died in 1917. She died two years later on 2 May 1919 in London and was buried in Brookwood Cemetery, near Woking, Surrey.
The De Morgan Centre for the Study of 19th Century Art and Society is a museum and gallery in the London Borough of Wandsworth, England, that houses a large collection of the work of the Victorian ceramic artist William De Morgan and his wife, the painter Evelyn De Morgan. The De Morgans were involved in the social issues of the day such as women’s suffrage, and this engagement is covered by the museum. The collection was formed by Evelyn De Morgan’s sister, Mrs Wilhelmina Stirling, who wrote several books under the name A.M.W. Stirling. It had been previously on display at her home, Old Battersea House. In the years following her death in 1965 parts of the collection were displayed at a number of locations including Cardiff Castle, Cragside in Northumberland and Knightshayes Court in Devon, all of which have interiors from the years when the De Morgans were active. In 2002, it was rehoused at the former West Hill Reference Library in Wandsworth, in south west London, which dates from 1887. The De Morgan Centre is open to the public four days a week. There is a programme of exhibitions of work by contemporary designers. Visit the centre’s website at … http://www.demorgan.org.uk. Standen is an Arts and Crafts house located near East Grinstead, West Sussex, England. The house and its surrounding gardens belong to the National Trust and are open to the public. Between 1892 and 1894 architect Philip Webb, who was a friend of William Morris, designed the house for a prosperous London solicitor, James Beale, his wife Margaret, and their family. It is decorated with Morris carpets, fabrics and wallpapers, and the garden complements the beauty of the house. The house still has its original electric light fittings. The house was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1972. The estate was formed from three farms which the Beales had purchased in 1890. The Beales started planting a 12-acre (49,000 m2) garden almost immediately after they had purchased the land, using the site of an 18th-century garden and orchard. In early 1891 trees were planted, a yew hedge established and the kitchen garden begun. Amongst the facilities at Standen arw an open-air theatre, guided walks, children’s school holiday activity days, regular temporary exhibitions and workshops, introductory talks, conservation demonstrations, lecture lunches, special Christmas programme of festive events and activities. Visit the house’s website at … http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-standen/
