Later Victorian Portraits Catalogue

Designer and craftswoman; born 25 March 1862, at Bexleyheath, Kent, daughter of William and Jane Morris, and always known as May. Trained in textile arts and design with her parents and at the National Art Training School, South Kensington 1880–83; manager of embroidery section of Morris & Co. 1885–96; thereafter instructor at the Central School of Design, London under W.R. Lethaby; regular exhibitor at Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, also at international exhibitions in Ghent (1913) and Paris (1914); ‘one of the main exponents of the revivalist style of needlework [and] a talented water-colourist [she] also designed wallpapers, jewellery, book bindings, and tapestries’; [1] founded 1907 the Women’s Guild of Arts, for craftswomen excluded from the all-male Art Workers Guild; edited her father’s literary works in 24 volumes 1906–14, lectured on his legacy in North America 1909–10 and from 1919 continued to promote his achievements and ideals; married Henry Halliday Sparling 1890, divorced 1898; died 16 October 1938 at Kelmscott Manor, near Lechlade, Oxfordshire.

Dr Jan Marsh

Referencesback to top

Dufty 1996
Dufty, A.R., ‘William Morris and the Kelmscott Estate’ in William Morris: Art and Kelmscott, ed. L. Parry, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1996, pp.94–105.

Elliott & Helland 2002
Elliott, B., and J. Helland, eds, Women Artists and the Decorative Arts 1880–1935, Aldershot, 2002.

Faxon 1989
Faxon, A.C., Rossetti, New York and Oxford, 1989.

Fredeman 2002–10
Fredeman, W.E., ed., The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 9 vols, Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2002–10.

Labourchere 1895
Labourchere, N., Ladies’ Bookplates, London, 1895.

Levitt 1991
Levitt, S., Fashion in Photographs 1880–1900, London, 1991.

Londraville 1997
Londraville, J., ed., On Poetry, Painting and Politics: The Letters of May Morris and John Quinn, Selinsgrove, PA, and London, 1997.

MacCarthy 1994
MacCarthy, F., William Morris: A Life for Our Time, London, 1994.

MacCarthy 2011
MacCarthy, F., The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination, London, 2011.

Mancoff 1998
Mancoff, D., Burne-Jones, San Francisco, 1998.

Mancoff 2000
Mancoff, D.N., Jane Morris: The Pre-Raphaelite Model of Beauty, San Francisco, 2000.

Marsh 1986
Marsh, J., Jane and May Morris: A Biographical Story, London, 1986.

Marsh 1998a
Marsh, J., The Pre-Raphaelites (NPG Character Sketches series), London, 1998.

Marsh 2004
Marsh, J., ‘Morris, Mary [May] (1862–1938)’, ODNB, Oxford, 2004; online ed., October 2007.

Marsh 2005a
Marsh, J., The Pre-Raphaelite Circle (NPG Insights series), London, 2005.

Parris 1984
Parris, L., ed., The Pre-Raphaelites, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1984.

Parry 1993
Parry, L., ‘Morris, Mary (‘MAY’)’, DNB, Oxford, 1993.

Parry 1996
Parry, L., ed., William Morris, exh. cat., Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1996.

Peterson 1982
Peterson, W., ed., The Ideal Book, Berkeley, 1982.

Rolley & Aish 1992
Rolley, K., and C. Aish, Fashion in Photographs 1900–1920, London, 1992.

Rossetti 1895
Rossetti, W.M., Dante Gabriel Rossetti: His Family-Letters with a Memoir, 2 vols, London, 1895.

Rothenstein 1926
Rothenstein, J., The Portrait Drawings of William Rothenstein 1889–1925, London, 1926.

Rothenstein 1931–2
Rothenstein, W., Men and Memories: Recollections of William Rothenstein, 2 vols, London, 1931–2.

Rothenstein 1939
Rothenstein, W., Since Fifty: Men and Memories 1922–1938 [vol.3], London, 1939.

Stuttgart 2010
Edward Burne-Jones: The Earthly Paradise, exh. cat., Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and Kunstmuseum Bern: Ostfildern, 2010.

Surtees 1971
Surtees, V., The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882): A Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols, Oxford, 1971.

Wildman & Christian 1998
Wildman, S., and J. Christian, Edward Burne-Jones: Victorian Artist–Dreamer, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998.

Wilton and Upstone 1997
Wilton, A., R. Upstone, and others, The Age of Rossetti, Burne-Jones & Watts: Symbolism in Britain 1860–1910, exh. cat., Tate Gallery, London, 1997.

Wood 1998
Wood, C., Burne-Jones: The Life and Works of Sir Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), London, 1998.