Inspired by William Morris himself, members of our Society are deeply interested in protecting architectural heritage. Within Ontario, the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario (ACO) helps conserve heritage assets across the province through its advocacy and work with property owners, conservators, other architects and designers.
Diane Chin, Past Chair of the Board of Governors, will speak about the ACO’s history, programs and partnerships. The largest and oldest heritage organization in Ontario, the ACO recently won a Governor's Award from the National Trust of Canada for its advocacy work.
Hadrian Garrard, Director of the William Morris Gallery in London and curator of ‘Morris Mania’ will speak to us about the Gallery’s recent exhibition.
William Morris (1834-96) has gone viral. Today, we find his infinitely-reproduced botanical patterns on shower curtains, phone cases, on film and TV, and in all corners of our homes, dentist waiting rooms and shopping centres. Over 125 years since his death, Morris’s work continues to grow in popularity. His patterns are now affordable, well-loved and available to people across the globe, something he failed to achieve in his lifetime. However, this has been achieved in the context of mass- production, computer-generated design, global capitalism and environmental crisis. Morris Mania considers the ongoing impact of Britain’s most iconic designer in our increasingly cluttered and commodified world.
Objects from the William Morris Gallery and private and public international collections include a ‘Rose’ patterned seat from the 1980s British Nuclear Submarine Fleet, ‘Willow’ pattern Nike trainers, and Loewe fashion inspired by Morris’s designs. The recent exhibition also featured Morris-patterned objects donated by the public. Morris-patterned donations to date include chopsticks, a waving cat from Japan, hand-embroidered wedding jackets, Wellington boots and an array of mugs and biscuit tins.
Port Perry
Leaskdale Mance, the home of author Lucy Maud
Montgomery from 1911 to 1926.
Leaskdale National Historic Church
Mary Philpott: Barn Owl
Mary Philpott: Five for Silver
Join our early fall day trip to the charming and historic town of Port Perry on the southern tip of Lake Scugog, northeast of Toronto.
Following our arrival in the area, we will visit the home and studio of ceramics artist Mary Philpott.
Mary Philpott is a full-time craft artist whose practice encompasses sculptural ceramics and bespoke
tile design. She is a graduate of the School of Craft and Design, Sheridan College (Ceramics) the University of Guelph (Art History, Medieval Studies) and McMaster University (Archeology, Anthropology). Mary has worked as an artist in residence at Harbourfront Studios (Toronto) and Air Vallauris (France). Her sculptures and tile work have been exhibited, collected and published internationally, and are in many private and public art collections.
“My Tilework is inspired by the landscape, flora and fauna of England and France, the colours of Provence and is mixed with the aesthetics of William Morris and the English Arts & Crafts Movement. The work that I make also reflects my interest in the lives and natural beauty of animals, both domesticated and wild. My rendering of these reflect an historical reference to nineteenth century children’s book illustrations, as well as medieval manuscript illuminations.”
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Continuing on, we will have lunch together then begin our tour of Port Perry’s Downtown Heritage
Conservation District and surrounding area with the President of the Lake Scugog Historical Society.
Before our return to Toronto later in the afternoon, we will travel to nearby Uxbridge for a tour and tea at Leaskdale Mance, the home of author Lucy Maud Montgomery from 1911 to 1926.
The Journal of William Morris Studies (UK) - Special Issue on Design - Call for Papers
• How did Morris’s design ideas and practice compare with those of his contemporaries?
• What fields best exemplify Morris’s enduring influence, or lack of influence, textiles, book
design, domestic interiors, etc?
• How have changes in consumer taste, and academic interest, affected the assessment or
appreciation of Morris?
• Why did Morris’s designs, and the designs of those who worked for him, create economic
and cultural value, social and personal meaning, in his time and ours?
• What do Morris artefacts mean to the purchaser/possessor?
• To what extent have Morris & Co designs, and products, been subsumed within capitalist
market processes? Or, do they somehow stand outside?
• What were Morris’s views on workplace and job design and does this relate to the current
revival of interest in craft design and production?
• What is Morris’s place in global design history?
• What has Morris to say to those involved in sustainable design?
If you have a proposal and would like to run it by the editor, John Blewitt, please send an email to
journal@williammorrissociety.org
Articles should be in the region of 5000-6000 words.
Copy deadline is September 22, 2025. Guidelines for contributors can be found at: https://williammorrissociety.org/guidelines-for-contributors/
Saturday May 10th 2025
10:00 am - 4:00 pm
(check-in and coffee 9:15-9:45)
Campbell Conference Facility
Munk School of Global Affairs
1 Devonshire Place
University of Toronto
Scandinavian and Finnish Art, Craft and Architecture
Painting Politically: National Romanticism and the Rise of Social Democracy
Michelle Facos, Indiana University-Bloomington
10:15 am
In
the final decades of the nineteenth century, progressive artists in
Finland, Norway, and Sweden actively promoted a democratic, egalitarian
ethos consistent with that of William Morris as part of a broader
movement toward Social Democracy. Equally urgent for Finns and
Norwegians, of course, was national sovereignty. These varied objectives
unified under the ideology of National Romanticism, whose twin purpose
was social solidarity and egalitarian political reform fostered by
imagery that reminded compatriots of their common heritage and history.
Michelle Facos
was the first to introduce Anglophone audiences to Swedish National
Romantic painting with her 1998 book, Nationalism and the Nordic
Imagination. Swedish Art of the 1890s (California). She is a professor
at Indiana University-Bloomington and has been a guest lecturer in
Germany, Poland, and Sweden. She is co-curator of the exhibition “The
Scandinavian Home: Art and Identity 1880-1920” opening at
Frick-Pittsburgh in September. For exhibition updates and
behind-the-scenes insights, follow @homeashistory on Instagram. For more on Nordic art, check out Facos’s YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@mfacosarthistorian and website: www.michellefacos.com.
The Myth of “Nordic Craft” and the Reality of Specificity
Monica Obniski, High Museum of Art, Atlanta
11:15 am
The
term “Nordic craft” might conjure up ideas of dala horses or woolen
blankets, but the history of craft production in the Nordic countries of
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland is quite rich and varied. Using a
framework that aims to shed the weight of myths surrounding Nordic
production, this talk will provide some social context from the late
19th century into the mid-twentieth century that enabled the making of
important examples of furniture, glass, ceramics, and textiles.
Monica Obniski is
a design historian and curator, currently at the High Museum of Art
(Atlanta, Georgia), where she is responsible for collecting, exhibiting,
and programming a global collection of decorative arts and design,
which includes a yearly piazza design commission. Her curatorial
practice engages social issues and is rooted in architecture and design
history. Monica’s most recent projects include Scandinavian Design and
the United States (2020-23), Stephen Burks: Shelter in Place(2022-24),
and Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other (2023-24); she is currently preparing
the exhibition Isamu Noguchi: “I am not a designer” for 2026-27. She
has held curatorial posts at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Art Institute
of Chicago, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Monica received an MA
from the Bard Graduate Center and a PhD from the University of Illinois
at Chicago.
Lunch provided 12:15 pm
A Visit to Hvitträsk
Mikko Teräsvirta, National Museum of Finland
1:30 pm
Hvitträsk
is a national romantic building complex designed by three architects, located
in Kirkkonummi right by Helsinki. It served as a home and office for
three architect families (Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel
Saarinen) and was built between 1901 and 1903. It is considered to be a
central work of art from the Finnish Art Nouveau period.
A fire
occurred in the northern wing of the main building in 1922, and a new
northern section was built between 1929 and 1936, designed by architect
Eero Saarinen, the son of Eliel Saarinen. Hvitträsk remained a summer
residence for the Saarinen family until 1949, when Saarinen moved to USA
and sold it to private ownership. It has operated as a museum since
1971. Hvitträsk is presented as the architectural home of Eliel Saarinen
from the early 20th century. The complex also includes a terrace
garden.
Mikko Teräsvirta
is responsible for museum services in three of the National Museum of
Finland’s sites, including Hvitträsk. He has over 20 years of experience
in the museum field and has a master's degree in ethnology from the
University of Helsinki.
The Plight of Craft
Taisto H Mäkelä, University of Colorado Denver, Emeritus
2:30 pm
William
Morris espoused principles of production and social values that
confronted those dominant in the Industrial Age. Morris, along with AWN
Pugin and John Ruskin, passionately argued for a return to Medieval
social models as an antidote to the dehumanizing machine age. The goal
was to restore the value of handcraft and the status of the worker but
multiple contradictions and conflicts were inevitably involved. How
successful was Morris?
To conclude, a few traditional wood churches
in Finland will be reviewed. These buildings, arguably, are
representative of an authentic cultural expression that continues into
the present in Finland. A recent example is the remarkable Kärsämäki
Shingle Church by OOPEAA Architects, 2004. It represents a rejection of
industrialized anonymity while contributing to the historical lineage
honoring the traditions of woodwork and craft.
Taisto H Mäkelä
grew up in West Vancouver, Canada. Beginning at the age of fourteen, he
was educated on construction sites by his father, a carpenter. Taisto
went on to receive a Diploma in Building Technology from the British
Columbia Institute of Technology followed by studies in the UK and US on
architectural history, theory, and criticism. His PhD dissertation at
Princeton University was titled “Imagined Affinities: Architectural
Representation and the Rhetoric of Nationalism in Finland at the Turn of
the Century”. A former Chair of the Department of Architecture at the
University of Colorado Denver, Taisto’s research interests include
aesthetic theory, the modern movement, privileged spaces of cultural
institutions, classical and vernacular traditions. He lectures on these
topics internationally and has served as a visiting faculty member in
Helsinki, Bucharest, Beirut, and Bangkok. In 2024, he was also appointed
a Visiting Associate Professor at Colorado College.
Registration, including lunch and reception:
Members: $ 95.
Non-members: $120.
Students with valid ID: $30
To register, please sign up at
https://forms.gle/EP9gYvuKm7oUmV2g8
before Monday, May 5th.
Our pattern this year was Single Stem by John Henry Dearle, designed some time before 1905, a wallpaper design is at the V&A. The colourful pattern was adapted into simplified floral scrollwork leaves and flowers.
The base of the cake was carrot cake, with cream cheese frosting and royal icing used for decoration.
See how the cake was made in the YouTube video below!
