William De Morgan

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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William De Morgan

by Evelyn De Morgan
oil on canvas, 1909
27 1/8 in. x 21 1/2 in. (688 mm x 548 mm)
Given by The De Morgan Foundation, 1996
Primary Collection
NPG 6358

On display at Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton

Sitterback to top

Artistback to top

This portraitback to top

Painted by his wife, the renowned artist Evelyn de Morgan, this portrait shows De Morgan 'surrounded by tokens of his two professions', holding one of his lustreware jars, with his novels on the bookshelf behind him.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • MacCarthy, Fiona, Anarchy & Beauty: William Morris and His Legacy 1860-1960, 2014 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 16 October 2014 - 11 January 2015), p. 60
  • Marsh, Jan, Character Sketches: The Pre-Raphaelites, 1998
  • Marsh, Jan, The Pre-Raphaelite Circle, 2013, p. 119 Read entry

    This 'portrait of the artist's husband' was done at their home in Chelsea after William, who had never made money from his ceramics, forged a highly successful career as a novelist. The jar he is holding is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum collection.

  • Marsh, Jan, Insights: The Pre-Raphaelite Circle, 2005, p. 112
  • Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 172

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1909back to top

Current affairs

The American retailer Harry Gordon Selfridge opens the first British custom-built department store on what was then the 'dead end' of Oxford Street. The revolutionary complex, considered the world's largest at the time, transforms shopping, offering diverse amenities including a post office and a library, and modernises the visual face of retailing through innovative window displays.

Art and science

The Frenchman Louis Bleriot becomes the first person to cross the English channel by aeroplane, winning the £1,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail, and greeted by cheering crowds at Dover station. Bleriot's flight also showed that England was, as H.G. Wells put it, from a military point of view 'no longer an inaccessible island'.
In dance, Alexandre Benois becomes the first artistic director of Sergey Diaghilev's innovative Ballets Russes.

International

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is founded in America to campaign for the rights of African Americans. One of the oldest and most influential civil rights movements, it was founded by a diverse group of individuals from mixed backgrounds, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Wells-Barnett, Henry Moscowitz and William English Walling.
The Selig Polyscope company sets up the first film studio in Los Angeles.

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