Evelyn & William De Morgan: A Marriage of Arts & Crafts

Abstract

Evelyn & William De Morgan: A Marriage of Arts & Crafts provides a fascinating account of the lives, influences, and impact of late nineteenth-century artists Evelyn and William De Morgan. While offering original and innovative insight into the couple’s career, this edited volume also serves as a synthesis of scholarship, given the comprehensiveness of the visual, archival, and bibliographical sources included, which can be used as a point of departure for De Morgan researchers. The inspirational and exquisite illustrations of the book, as well as the historical and artistic discussions they stimulate, inform the temporary exhibition, of the same title, at the Delaware Art Museum (2022–2023). This collection is a combination of research on two widely recognized, yet often overlooked figures whose works are at the intersection of the Arts and Crafts, late Pre-Raphaelite, and Aesthetic movements. While Evelyn De Morgan seems to sporadically captivate researchers, William’s achievements have been frequently recognized in biographic and art historiographic studies.1 Their creative union was nonetheless relatively obscured until 2017, with the publication of Lucy Ella Rose’s Suffragist Artists in Partnership: Gender, Word and Image.2 Continuing with the current momentum in feminist studies’ interest in artistic partnerships, A Marriage of Arts & Crafts engages with recent research and scholarship while providing new information about Evelyn’s and William’s lives.