David Parr House Zoom Lecture

 David Parr House

Zoom Lecture

November 21st, 2pm EST

MEMBERS ONLY

Tamsin Wimhurst will be giving WMSC members an online lecture about UK's Arts & Crafts home: David Parr House.

From the moment that Tamsin first saw the house in 2009 she knew she had discovered something special, but how could such a house be saved? The only way seemed to be for her and her husband Mike to purchase the house and set up a charity in 2014, the aim being to conserve the house and open it up to the public. The project also needed many experienced people to work out how to open such a small and fragile interior. As Tamsin was told early on, ‘you have all the issues of a stately home but on a much smaller scale and that does not make it any easier’.

“Masters of the Arts & Crafts" at Roycroft, Zoom Lectures

 

The Roycroft Campus is once again offering a new History Course this Fall, all done virtually. The course will look at the “Masters of the Arts & Crafts,” John Ruskin, William Morris, Gustav Stickley and Elbert Hubbard II. Think of it as the Mount Rushmore of the movement. Through these four individuals, you will have a better understanding of the Arts and Crafts, and its key players. A different guest speaker will lead each class, which takes place on Zoom, Saturdays at 11:00am eastern standard time in November.

The Roycroft History Course is $20 for each individual presentation, or register for the whole course and save $10, all four classes for $70. 

Register Here.

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Saturday, November 14th at 11am EST
Master of All Trades: William Morris’ “True Secret of Happiness”
with David Latham



William Morris, c. 1887

David Latham will give an illustrated introduction to William Morris, the Olympian genius who inspired Elbert Hubbard to found the Roycroft Arts and Crafts community and was considered by Hubbard as a “prophet of God.” A jack of all trades and master of them all, Morris stands remarkably at the forefront of six historic movements in Western culture: the Pre-Raphaelite movement in the 1850s, the Arts and Crafts movement in the 1860s, the architectural preservation movement in the 1870s, the Socialist movement in the 1880s, the prose romance movement in the 1890s, and the private press movement in the 1890s. Each of these six historic movements will be illustrated by Morris’s Pre-Raphaelite poetry, by his furniture, wallpapers, tapestries, and stained glass, by his political lectures for revolutionizing the nature of work, by his visionary prose which Yeats praised as the most beautiful language ever written, and by the font, watermarked paper, and illustrations he designed for the most beautiful books ever printed.

Click to Register

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Saturday, November 21st at 11am EST
Gustav Stickley, The Man and His Mission
with David Dalton Rudd




Gustav Stickley

Gustav began his furniture career in 1876. How did he get to where he is today? I will give a brief background of Gustav Stickley and the progression of his life with furniture. I’ll do this through who he worked with and what he was producing. I will wrap up the presentation with an explanation of what’s going on with his Columbus Avenue home in Syracuse, NY.

Click to Register

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Saturday, November 28th at 11am EST
Burt Hubbard: The Forgotten Son Who Saved the Roycroft
with Robert Rust




Bert Hubbard c. 1927

Elbert Hubbard II, known as Bert, was the first child of Elbert and Bertha Hubbard. He would grow up watching his father transform the Roycroft from a single printing press to an Arts & Crafts community of hundreds of artisans. Bert worked in various positions around the Roycroft, but never dreamed he’d find himself in charge in May 1915, after his father was killed aboard the Lusitania. Bert would go on to run the Shops longer than his father, becoming a leader not only at the Roycroft, but throughout East Aurora. Mr. Rust will lead us on the journey of Bert Hubbard, how he saved the Roycroft, cementing its legacy in the Arts & Crafts world, and his life after the Campus closed.

Click to Register

UnBuilt Toronto Zoom Lecture

UnBuilt Toronto

Zoom Lecture

October 17th, 4pm EST

MEMBERS ONLY

Author Mark Osbaldeston (Unbuilt Toronto, Unbuilt Toronto 2) explores two centuries of never-realized building and planning proposals for Queen’s Park and the neighbouring University of Toronto campus. Using dozens of images drawn from provincial, municipal, and university archives, Osbaldeston discusses the fascinating origins and fates of Toronto landmarks that might have been.

Mark Osbaldeston is the author of three books on architectural and planning history. His first book, Unbuilt Toronto (2008), was a finalist for the Toronto Book Awards and was shortlisted for the inaugural Speaker’s Book Award. Both Unbuilt Toronto and its sequel, Unbuilt Toronto 2 (2012), received an Award of Merit from Heritage Toronto. His most recent book, Unbuilt Hamilton, was published in 2016. It was shortlisted for the Kerry Schooley Award.

Mark has curated exhibitions based on his research for the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Toronto Archives, and the Hamilton Museum of Steam and Technology.

Ruskin, Roycroft, and the Art & Crafts Conference

 

The Roycroft Campus, The Ruskin Society of North America, and The Guild of St. George (founded by Ruskin in the 1870s in the UK), have come together to collaborate on an exciting series of virtual talks titled “Ruskin, Roycroft, and the Arts and Crafts Movement” that will be take place on five successive Saturdays this October: October 3, 10, 17, 24, and 31.  

Our first two gatherings will feature two internationally known Ruskin specialists: on October 3, Professor Jim Spates will speak on “From Rouen to Roycroft: John Ruskin and the Birth of the Arts and Crafts Movement”; on the following Saturday, Dr. Peter Burman will provide us with a “Scottish Perspective on Ruskin’s Influence on the Arts and Crafts Movement in the United Kingdom.” Subsequent Saturdays will feature a history of how Elbert Hubbard’s vision and energy established the Movement in North America, and illustrated talks by artists-in-residence at The Roycroft Campus, who will speak on the vital importance of drawing, photography, writing, and creative book-making in the modern world.

 

Sessions will be held using the Zoom platform and all talks will be followed by a Question and Answer session. Registration for the Conference is $50 per person, which covers all five weeks (eight presentations). For more information on the topics and speakers and to register please visit the Roycroft Campus website at: www.roycroftcampuscorp.com and click on the “Ruskin Roycroft Conference” banner.

 

For a direct link, click here: www.roycroftcampuscorporation.com/ruskin-roycroft-conference/

William De Morgan's Tiles

 

Rob Higgins is the author of several books on William De Morgan and a specialist in Victorian Arts and Crafts Tiles. In this online talk, Rob kindly shares his personal collection of De Morgan tiles with us. He will speak about his current research on De Morgan's Dutch blanks and share some of his rare and unique tiles with us.

The Summer 2020 WMS-UK Journal is here!

Members, check your emails for the digital issue of the William Morris Society-UK journal!

 

From the CBC Archives

Quite a find from the CBC Archives, originally broadcast on July 15, 1993.


"Before the age of machines in the 18th and 19th centuries, everything was handmade. But mass production changed all that - something English poet William Morris found dehumanizing. Morris was founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the Victorian age. He was best known for the natural themes of his wallpaper, tapestries and vases, which he believed should be handmade by skilled craftspeople. As this CBC documentary explains, Morris brought a socialist philosophy to design."