William Morris (1834–1896) was one of the most celebrated practitioners of the Arts and Crafts Movement. He embraced the ideal of craftspeople taking pride in their personal handiwork, as opposed to the dehumanising onslaught of the Industrial Revolution. In creating woven and printed textile patterns (only one area expressed by his remarkable talents), Morris chose to work with the ancient technique of hand woodblock printing. He famously said that any decoration is futile when it does not remind you of something beyond itself.

Morris sought inspiration for his famous repeating patterns from the natural world around him, mille-fleurs tapestries and early prints of herbs as well as the crispness and abundance of exquisite detail in mediæval art. His evocations of antique florals and plants in all their profusion, depth of tone and magical gradation of tints have become design classics gracing the decorative arts, including our journal covers.