In our Orientations sequence, members of the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood discover an object that resonates with their id. Laurie Bassam, Assistant Curator at V&A Dundee, selected an embroidered hanging by Could Morris. Laurie displays on how hidden identities, as soon as revealed, can supply a brand new context and rework our understanding of an in any other case acquainted historical past.
What do you consider whenever you hear “Arts and Crafts motion” or “Morris & Co”? In most individuals’s minds, they’re synonymous with stunning floral wallpapers, good-looking hand-crafted designs and (in a contemporary context) good prints on objects in museum reward outlets.
As a toddler of a middle-class household, I spent a few of my summer time holidays in Nationwide Belief properties, studying about Arts and Crafts. I assumed I knew loads about this quintessentially British ornamental artwork motion. I even learn Information From Nowhere as an impassioned teen fascinated by radical politics (within the ebook, William Morris primarily advocates turning the Homes of Parliament right into a dung heap!). Nonetheless, what I believe may need turn out to be obscured from the historical past we inform of this motion is the unconventional private politics on the centre of it. Particularly, the lifetime of Could Morris.
In the previous few years, as queer histories have turn out to be extra overtly mentioned as a part of public life, and as curators and historians have been extra keenly telling these tales, Could has come to forefront. However her queerness, and even the suggestion of it, took me unexpectedly.
Rising up as a part of the LGBTQIA+ neighborhood, it’s laborious, and sometimes irritating, that you simply don’t end up within the issues round you. Even in a liberal metropolis like Brighton, the place I used to be in school within the dying days of Part 28, it wasn’t at all times as straightforward as individuals suppose. Artwork, design, craft and theatre had been at all times a refuge for me, the place all of the odd balls and misfits frolicked, each traditionally and within the current.
Subconsciously or not, you decide idols like Frida Kahlo or Claude Cahun as a result of they signify the outsider, the weird, the arty, the queer. Could Morris would have been a welcome addition to the small crop of idols I drew collectively when looking for myself within the wider world.
For many who aren’t within the know, Could was the daughter of Jane and William Morris, de facto founders of the Arts and Crafts motion and Morris & Co. A passionate advocate for craft herself, Could based the Girls’s Guild of Arts with Mary Elizabeth Turner (the Artwork Employees’ Guild, though impressed by her father’s pondering, didn’t admit ladies). An excellent embroiderer in her personal proper, she took over the embroidery part of Morris & Co. in 1885, aged simply 23.
Later, she taught at Central Faculty of Arts and Crafts in London and was head of their Embroidery division for six years. Her work sits in lots of distinguished collections together with the V&A and Nationwide Museums Scotland. The instance of her work hanging within the Nationwide Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh is gorgeous: an embroidered hanging made with Theodosia Middlemore round 1900, one in every of solely two in existence.
Her private life is the place it will get fascinating. Could was married for 4 years to political activist Henry Halliday Spalding, whereas additionally being linked at varied factors to George Bernard Shaw. However Could’s longest standing relationship was with Mary Frances Vivian Lobb. Lobb got here into Could’s life initially as member of the native Land Military, put to work close to Kelmscott Manor in 1917.
After the Land Military, Mary joined the Kelmscott family as a gardener, however swiftly turned ensconced in Could’s life. Mary Lobb cuts an uncommon determine for the time and could be thought of as ‘butch’ by as we speak’s requirements. She was usually seen in ‘knickerbockers’ (trousers) and with brief, cropped hair.
The pair travelled extensively collectively via Iceland and throughout Europe and shared their lives (and purportedly a mattress) for 22 years. They might usually be seen working within the backyard, attending native occasions collectively, out and about with the horse and entice. The area people, and George Bernard Shaw himself, had been usually derogatory about Mary Lobb and her “tough” methods, evaluating the pair to ‘the lesbian women of Llangollen’. Upon her dying in 1938, Could left Mary private results, the numerous sum of £12,000 (virtually £1m as we speak!) and secured Mary’s tenure of Kelmscott Manor for the remainder of her life, although Mary died solely 5 months after Could.
This wealthy and seemingly queer historical past is fascinating to me, largely as a result of it has usually been obscured in items written about Could or the Morris household basically. It’s usually seen as a unusual footnote (with Miss Lobb sometimes called Could’s ‘companion’). Individuals really feel tentative, not sure and uneasy about referring to them as a pair, regardless of analysis intentionally pointing to a deep private relationship between the 2.
As William Morris is quoted as saying, “the true secret of happiness lies in taking a real curiosity in all particulars of each day life.” I want I’d identified extra about Could’s each day life rising up as a queer particular person within the Arts and Crafts motion. I’d have added Could to the arsenal of queer creatives that made me really feel much less alone, extra a part of a wealthy tapestry of LGBTQIA+ historical past.
It’s vital that we reframe these histories to incorporate individuals who had been as soon as simply thought of ‘fascinating footnotes’. They assist us inform higher and richer histories of the world round us; histories that embody everybody. As a queer particular person trying in, you possibly can tangibly really feel their queerness seeping out of the written accounts of their lives collectively. The lengthy holidays away from prying eyes, the shared mattress, the physician’s payments paid by Could on Mary’s behalf, the bequest. It makes me surprise if we regularly easy over the troublesome and radical in ornamental artwork actions as we seek for the palatable and easy for a wider (dare I say it?) heterosexual viewers.
Concerning the creator
Laurie (she/they) is the outgoing Assistant Curator at V&A Dundee, having labored on a wide range of exhibition initiatives. They’re shifting on to be the Challenge Curator on the Nationwide Belief for Scotland, engaged on digitizing the Robert Burns Museum assortment for a brand new on-line assortment platform.
LGBTQIA+ tales have usually been overlooked of mainstream historical past and we’re eager to make them extra seen via tales advised by our objects, LGBTQIA+ voices within the museum and by bringing in exterior views. Discover the tales thus far.
And if you wish to assist us inform these tales, ship us a pitch!
