Speaker - Peter Stansky

William Morris was a poet and artist as well as the foremost figure in the

Arts and Crafts movement. He succeeded in reviving some of the techniques of handmade production that machines were replacing. His iconic patterns for fabrics and wallpaper are instantly recognizable, and the baroquely beautiful productions of his Kelmscott Press, using typefaces designed by Morris, are coveted by museums and collectors. His vision inspired the rediscovery of decoration based on natural forms and the inherent beauty of particular materials. Peter Stansky’s assessment of the life and times of Morris will complement the present exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center.

Peter Stansky was educated at Yale, Cambridge, and Harvard. He has spent his career as a Professor of British history at Stanford University. His extensive writing on modern Britain includes two books on William Morris as well as studies of Bloomsbury, George Orwell, and British participants in the Spanish Civil War—and, not least, the arts in Britain during the Second World War. He has recently collaborated with Fred Leventhal on a biography of Leonard Woolf, soon to be published.