William De Morgan
William Frend De Morgan was an English potter, tile designer, and at the end of his life a popular novelist. He was married to the painter Evelyn De Morgan (who painted the portrait shown here).
De Morgan was an important figure in the British Arts and Crafts Movement, and a good friend of William Morris and the (later) Pre-Raphaelite Circle, designing tiles, stained glass, and furniture for Morris & Co. He was always a better artist than business man, and he left the pottery world in 1907. "All my life I have been trying to make beautiful things," he said at the time, "and now that I can make them nobody wants them."
De Morgan published his first novel, Joseph Vance , in 1906 (at age 67). His long, "old-fashioned" novels, more like the slow-paced Victorian novels of decades earlier, were widely and surprisingly popular. He found financial success as an author in a way he never had as a ceramicist. Before he died in 1917, he had published seven novels, with two more appearing posthumously.
Today his novels are all but forgotten while his art pottery is highly valued and collected.
De Morgan was an important figure in the British Arts and Crafts Movement, and a good friend of William Morris and the (later) Pre-Raphaelite Circle, designing tiles, stained glass, and furniture for Morris & Co. He was always a better artist than business man, and he left the pottery world in 1907. "All my life I have been trying to make beautiful things," he said at the time, "and now that I can make them nobody wants them."
De Morgan published his first novel, Joseph Vance , in 1906 (at age 67). His long, "old-fashioned" novels, more like the slow-paced Victorian novels of decades earlier, were widely and surprisingly popular. He found financial success as an author in a way he never had as a ceramicist. Before he died in 1917, he had published seven novels, with two more appearing posthumously.
Today his novels are all but forgotten while his art pottery is highly valued and collected.
