William Morris and his Palace of Art with Tessa Wild

Join the BIID for an evening lecture all about William Morris’s Palace of Art, Red House in Kent with expert curator and author Tessa Wild

Red House in Kent was the only house William Morris ever commissioned and owned. The house stands as the physical embodiment of his exuberant spirit, youthful ambition, romantic medievalism, and great sense of possibility.

For five highly industrious and creatively charged years from 1860–5, it resounded with the ‘jovial campaign’ of decorating and furnishing and creating a garden to meet his emergent taste for rich colour, figurative compositions and complex pattern making.  

Recent research has revealed lost wall paintings, tantalising fragments of polychromatic patterns and a wealth of evidence about the furnishings, contents, the overarching theme of the interior schemes and a much richer knowledge of the interrelationship of house and garden.  

In this talk, Tessa Wild, independent curator, and writer, will explore the creation of Red House, significant discoveries, and its role as a point of inspiration and testing ground for the founding and first commissions of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (later Morris & Co.).

WHAT TO EXPECT
Tessa will take us through

• The history of house from 1859 to 1865
• Detailed descriptions of the interior decoration and furnishings
• Description of the garden
• The critical role Red House played in the founding of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (later Morris & Co.) in 1861

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

This event is open to all that have an interest in interior design, the work of Arts and Crafts master William Morris and period interiors. Member and non-member tickets are available to purchase.  

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Tessa Wild is co-director of the Attingham Trust Summer School and an independent curator and writer. She worked for the National Trust for 18 years, curating a portfolio of artists’ and writers' houses in London and country houses in Oxfordshire, Sussex and East Anglia and was curator of Red House from the point of its acquisition by the National Trust in 2003 until 2016.   

She is the author of William Morris and his Palace of Art (Philip Wilson, 2018) and is working on a new book on Standen, Sussex, built to Philip Webb’s designs for the Beale family in 1891-4. 

She is a trustee of Emery Walker’s House and a member of the Foyle Advisory Group for British and Irish Furniture Makers Online (BIFMO).

You can purchase a copy of 'William Morris and his Palace of Art' by Tessa Wild here

Welcome to the BIID Book Club

The BIID Book Club is our series of evening lectures introducing interior designers to interesting and relevant subject matter through presentations and in-conversations from industry expert authors. Join us for a peek inside the creativity, creation, curation, and content of new and exciting titles focussing on the principles and practice of our field, interior design
Additional Information

Once you have registered for this event, you will be emailed the Zoom meeting link the day before the event.  If this event is fully booked, please join the waiting list. If you are no longer able to attend, please inform the office so that we can give your spot to someone else.

The advertised price does not include VAT.

Attendance to this event equals 1 hour of Structured CPD

If you have any queries, please email the office at info@biid.org.uk or call 020 7628 0255.

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