Women Pioneers of the Arts and Crafts Movement 

Edited by Karen Livingstone. Hardback, 287pp, 290 colour illustrations (Thames & Hudson Ltd, in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 2024), £35. ISBN 9780500480731.

Reviewed by Sarah Lear, University of York

This beautiful book, lavishly illustrated with exemplar work, is published jointly by the V&A Museum and Thames & Hudson and explores the often-neglected stories of thirty four women who contributed significantly to the genre (Fig. 1). The editorial team, consisting of Karen Livingstone, Dr Jasmine Allen, Rowan Bain, Dr Eloise Donnelly, Jenny Lister and Florence Tyler, who hold weighty curatorial positions at the William Morris Gallery, V&A, Stained Glass and Fitzwilliam Museums, are admirably qualified to lead readers through biographical details and highlight the remarkable work of their protagonists. Some are familiar names such as May Morris, Gertrude Jekyll, Mary Setton Watts and Phoebe Anna Traquair, but for others this may be the first time their work has been celebrated. I was struck, for example, that the authors could not find a portrait of Kate Faulkner who was the first designer, apart from the man himself, of many recognisable wallpapers and fabrics that are now remembered as Morris & Co. patterns. Instead Faulkner, sister to co-founder of ‘The Firm’ Charles Faulkner, is remembered because ‘traces of her personality can be found in accounts by her friends and in a few surviving letters.’¹ This vignette encapsulates why the book is so illuminating. In another story illustrating the innovative essence of the book, we hear of the seven Pinwheel sisters whose mother knew they ‘would be happier having a profession’ rather than entering into marriage.² Livingstone heads up the editorial panel and introduces the theme with a succinct overview followed by short and readable biographies split in twenty-nine chapters. As with the artists, the types of work chronicled range from covering proverbial subjects such as embroidery, oil and watercolour painting techniques, book illustration, jewellery work and enamelling through bookbinding, architecture and stained glass to more unusual topics including making of medals and seals, wax reliefs, toys and gesso techniques.

The book picks up on the current zeitgeist of the feminine role in history, see for example Women Art Workers and the Arts and Crafts Movement by Dr Zoë Thomas (2020), and as Livingstone suggests, this artistic movement was the one of the first where women had an active role. One reason was the small scale, artisanal and bespoke nature of the Movement. For women at the turn of the century balancing competing desires and needs, the ability to combine work with family domesticity was enabling. Phoebe Anna Traquair juggled motherhood and illustrating her spouse’s papers, wresting time and space to be a fully fledged professional artist whilst negotiating permission to do so from her husband. That said, many artists did successfully run their own workshops, either modestly or on a more professional level such as Annie Garnett’s The Spinnery (Fig. 2), providing handwoven linen and silk, with over ninety employees at one point.

I was interested to note themes across the biographies. The impact of the schools of art, particularly in London and Birmingham, was essential in training, inspiring and generating artists. These acted as hubs with wide spheres of influence, women learnt theoretical and practical skills but they also formed significant friendships and created gatherings offering further support and opportunities. Entrance to a school of art was a favoured route for women in a similar way to the academic approach which flavours the life of many youngsters today. Livingstone notes in the chapter on Kate and Myra Bunce (Fig. 3) ‘nearly every important family in the town had a representative on the student list.’³ Exhibitions were highly influential, particularly in this context the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. Here work was noticed, patrons congregated presenting chances of new commissions. Both institutional structures provided opportunities in a competitive environment for reward and celebration of success.

The book identifies and highlights barriers to development based purely on gender such as the refusal of organisations to admit women. The routes around these are fascinating to trace. There are references to sneering language from some men, such as Arts and Crafts leader C.R. Ashbee, about amateur work and some used devaluing feminised language. Shockingly, I learnt, W.B. Yeats was reprimanded by his father for sending objectionable letters to his talented sisters, Susan and Elizabeth, about their work.⁴ Their achievements were often unacknowledged or attributed to their sister or husband when part of an artistic duo.

The desire of women for independence and liberation comes through powerfully, not only from male mindsets and approaches, but also in relation to their restrictive clothing, see chapters on May Morris and Jessie Newbery. Many artists were polymaths, learning and displaying multiple talents across the decorative arts as the need arose. Whether they picked up one genre or another could lead to financial success or failure such as in the story of Georgie Gaskin (Fig. 4).

As the first females to break into these professional organisations and training institutes, a prerequisite for success was some form of determination and drive. Unsurprisingly, suffrage was a theme that reoccurs in many lives, although always pleasantly alluded to without subverting the main story. Lister describes a piece of Ann Macbeth’s work which started life as a quilt with the signatures of eighty hunger strikers from Holloway prison, but was repurposed to become part of the banners that decorated the Votes for Women marches. One wonders what modern protesters would make of rebellion by textile?

There is also a sense of the types of families that many women were brought up in; often middle-class, monied – more than one travelled abroad extensively – liberal, artistic, bohemian, and often enjoying a vibrant community. Veronica Whall, creator of 73 windows for King Arthur’s Great Hall in Tintagel (Fig. 5), is quoted as saying ‘there was never any thought of my being anything else but an artist.’⁵ For some the patronage and friendship with the Morris & Co. gaggle provided opportunities; Annie Garnett was aided by her acquaintance with John Ruskin. That said, Edith Dawson had an arduous life and Susan and Elizabeth Yates were hampered in a challenging home. As well as the significance of religious motivations for many, another enabler was the provision of housing for the single professional female which meant that women had approved-of lodgings.

A few individual stories seem worth commenting on here. Ethel Mary Charles was the first professional architect and her ongoing battle, even a pseudonym to facilitate anonymous judging, was admirable. Annie Jack, and her husband George, were examples of the archetypal Arts and Crafts couple, working together and raising their twin daughters also so to do. Jessie Newbery, creator of the Glasgow rose motif, epitomised the Arts and Crafts ideals by likening the design and decoration of a pepper pot to that of a cathedral. Although frequently designs grew from generic Arts and Crafts floral or foliate imagery, some amplified the genre such as Frances MacDonald’s front cover illustration for a book on dress reform. Bain comments that ‘the figures emanate a newly envisioned presentation of femininity: each woman wears an elaborate off-the-shoulder dress, breaking free from the constraints of traditional Victorian depictions that portrayed women merely as objects of purity and beauty.’⁶ Cassandra Annie Walker strove against expectations for the Della Robbia pottery wandering in her Middle Eastern cloak the tricky Liverpudlian location.

Besides the admiration of these pioneering characters, I was left with further questions. I wondered how and why these were the chosen; I would have been fascinated to be a fly on the wall in that round table discussion. Twenty nine chapters was somewhat exhausting, and it became difficult to distinguish between artists. But my consumption of it in a single sitting was perhaps not the vision of the book, intended more as an exquisitely illustrated reference book? I was also uncertain on the need to highlight the likes of May Morris and Gertrude Jekyll who, although evidently pioneers, have both been brought to life elsewhere.

Architect and designer, Philip Webb referred to Kate Faulkner as ‘that excellentissimus of craftswomen.’⁷ May Morris said of herself, ‘I’m a remarkable woman.’⁸ Remarkable and excellentissimus; Livingstone et al. have demonstrated that these epithets could be used to describe all thirty-nine of the innovators in this handsome and engaging book.

Footnotes

1. Quoted in Karen Livingstone, “Kate Faulkner,” 85[↩]
2. Quoted in Livingstone, “Introduction,” 15[↩]
3. Quoted in Livingstone, “Kate and Myra Bunce,” 56[↩]
4. Quoted in Livingstone, “Susan and Elizabeth Yates,” 268[↩]
5. Quoted in Jasmine Allen, “Veronica Whall,” 256[↩]
6. Quoted in Rowan Bain, “Frances MacDonald,” 163[↩]
7. Quoted in Livingstone, “Kate Faulkner,” 87[↩]
8. Quoted in Jenny Lister, “May Morris,” 193[↩]