Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue
William Frend De Morgan (1839-1917), Artist, potter and novelist
- Gallery portraits
- All known portraits
- Biography and References
Ceramicist and novelist; born 16 November 1839, in London. Studied at the Royal Academy Schools 1859–62, alongside Albert Moore, Henry Holiday, William Blake Richmond and others; became close to William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones; designed stained glass and tiles and from 1872 became a renowned ceramic artist specializing in lustres, rich colour and inventive designs; when his pottery business wound down in the 1900s became the unexpectedly successful author of contemporary fiction in a Dickensian mode; married painter Evelyn Pickering 1887; died 15 January 1917, in London; a large collection of his ceramic work is now vested in the De Morgan Foundation.
Tall, yet slightly built, with a high-domed head, and speaking with a swooping voice, ‘as if it had never quite settled to be soprano or bass’, De Morgan was a delightful companion, full of playful humour and puns:
a queer, unexpected talker, not exactly brilliant, but fantastic, if child-like, by reason of a certain simplicity which took for granted he could never be a bore, and he never could be, for, clever as he was, ready tongued as he was, a freshness was always maintained which one knew to be quite spontaneous, unaffected and sincere. [1]
Late in life, he was described as ‘extremely reticent’ when interviewed, but ‘a most kindly and genial man, of a very sweet and sympathetic nature’. [2]
Dr Jan Marsh
Tall, yet slightly built, with a high-domed head, and speaking with a swooping voice, ‘as if it had never quite settled to be soprano or bass’, De Morgan was a delightful companion, full of playful humour and puns:
a queer, unexpected talker, not exactly brilliant, but fantastic, if child-like, by reason of a certain simplicity which took for granted he could never be a bore, and he never could be, for, clever as he was, ready tongued as he was, a freshness was always maintained which one knew to be quite spontaneous, unaffected and sincere. [1]
Late in life, he was described as ‘extremely reticent’ when interviewed, but ‘a most kindly and genial man, of a very sweet and sympathetic nature’. [2]
Dr Jan Marsh
Footnotesback to top
1) Recollections by William Blake Richmond, in preface to Stirling 1922, pp.9–11.
2) Stoker 1908, p.10339.
Referencesback to top
Coburn 1913Coburn, A.L., Men of Mark, London and New York, 1913.
Crawford 2004c
Crawford, A., ‘Morgan, William Frend De (1839–1917)’, ODNB, Oxford, 2004; online ed., October 2009.
Gordon 1996
Gordon, C., ed., Evelyn De Morgan: Oil Paintings, De Morgan Foundation, London, 1996.
Hamilton 1997
Hamilton, M., Rare Spirit: A Life of William De Morgan 1839–1911, London, 1997.
Lamb 1983
Lamb, R., James Kerr-Lawson: A Canadian Abroad, exh. cat., Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario, 1983.
Marsh & Nunn 1997
Marsh, J., and P. Gerrish Nunn, Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists, exh. cat., Manchester City Art Galleries, 1997.
Pinkham 1973
Pinkham, R., Catalogue of Pottery by William De Morgan, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1973.
Spink 1928
Portrait Medals of a Generation Modelled by Ethel A.C. Harris, Spink & Co., London, 1928.
Stirling 1922
Stirling, A.M.W., William De Morgan and His Wife, London, 1922.
Stoker 1908
Stoker, Bram, ‘Mr De Morgan’s Habits of Work’ World’s Work, July 1908, pp.10337-41.