Exhibition ‘Inspired by William Morris’
Online gallery
We invite all Members to create a 30cm square exhibition panel in response to the theme Inspired by William Morris. Your panel can be made with traditional stained glass techniques or with contemporary and experimental methods. We look forward to seeing your work, whether you are a professional, an enthusiast or a novice. If you are not already a Member you can join here to enter.
All work should be new and can interpreted the theme in any way you choose. We are hoping for a wide range of work that reflects William Morris’ varied creative, social and intellectual achievements. You can watch a free webinar that launched the project here.
Stained glass is an art form that takes time and thought to create. By studying the past we can look at the craft afresh and communicate it to a modern audience. We would like this exhibition to help inspire a new generation of people to work with stained glass and commission it for public buildings and homes as William Morris succeed in doing.
Entry to the online exhibition is free and work can be added until December 2025. You can submit up to three panels for the online exhibition by sending a high-resolution image to portfolio@bsmgp.org.uk. You must include your name, title, medium/techniques and up to 60 words about your piece.
We have commissioned a new display stand sponsored by Morris & Co to showcase 24 exhibits. A panel of experts from the Master Glass Painters, Sanderson and the The Stained Glass Museum made an initial selection of panels for the touring exhibition.
All panels for the tour MUST fit within an aluminium opening exactly 30cm square and 15mm deep. We recommend all panels, including fused glass, are made with a 12mm edge lead that can be trimmed to 297mm x 297mm if necessary. All work on tour is for sale and should be priced to include a 40% commission fee. We will change the panels on display periodically and sold work will leave the exhibition so there will be an opportunity for other panels to be displayed. There is a £30 selection fee to enter the tour. Please email portfolio@bsmgp.org.uk if you would like your panel to be considered for venues.
The exhibition launched at the International Festival of Glass in Stourbridge 23-26 August 2024 and then moved to the Stained Glass Museum in Ely before travelling to the stunning Rochdale Town Hall. From Rochdale the exhibition moved to the beautiful medieval cathedral of Ripon in North Yorkshire where it stayed until it moved to the final stop at the Red Cone Glass House in Stourbridge. The exhibition is open Monday to Friday 10am-3pm and Saturday & Sunday 11am-4pm. Entry is free.
Enjoy the online exhibition. Just click on the image to scroll through the panels. We will add more as they are submitted.
Fused and painted glass. "The panel was inspired by a dusty crumpled old book on William Morris, found in the library of a retired textiles artist and friend. The book brought to life the ageless Morris fabric designs for me. The background is a mixture of his designs compiling a garden and made in two layers of fused and painted stained glass."
Antique glass, sandblasted, painted and stained. "Taking inspiration from the ecclesiastical windows of William Morris and his passion for the natural world - this piece reflects on how we treat it. A crushed can among the grass and wildflowers is a quiet but sharp reminder of our carelessness. The piece explores the tension between appreciation and destruction, asking us to think about the small ways we harm the world we claim to value, a world we are slowly destroying."
Silver stained and painted stained glass, leaded and copper foiled together, paper attached. "Stained glass continues into modern times to create impact. Using paper to replicate the Kelmscott Press enabled me to list some of the endangered crafts we are at risk of losing. The upper half of my piece illustrates examples in a pictorial way. We must persevere in our efforts and remain hopeful for the future for all our crafts, by continuing Morris’ legacy of championing the handmade. The shattered window represents the fragmentation of this legacy, if the world is no longer transformed by this beauty."
Vitreous paint, float glass and scrap glass. "This is part of a triptych in the Mother and Daughters series that I am working on looking at the complicated relationship that artists can have with their female muses. Jane's soulful eyes reach out from the past to us, as drawn by her lover Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Even though she is immortalised as the subject/object in numerous paintings I have always felt that in so many ways she has been underestimated."
Vitreous paint, float glass and scrap glass. "May Morris was a talented designer and artisan and the importance of her work within her father's business has previously been overlooked with some designs misattributed as her fathers, but she is now celebrated in her own right. The background pattern was made by smudging fingers into the wet paint to represent all the artisanal hands involved in the making of the arts & crafts movement."
Lamberts Glass, painted, silver stained, engraved, enamelled. "William Morris was deeply influenced by the medieval sagas of Iceland, which shaped his view of the best life a man could live. I've chosen to illustrate the story of King Rerir and his wife who long for a child. Odin and Freyia hear their prayers and send a fertility apple to them using their maid who takes the form of a crow."