Mr George Frampton’s season ticket to The Arts & Crafts Exhibition Society, 1890

Aspinwall Sam, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frampton_1890.jpg

In the 1850s, Britons were congratulating themselves for being the most sophisticated and advanced people there had ever been – vide: the Great Exhibition, held in Hyde Park in 1851. Had there ever been such a vindication of the notions of progress and industry? Had not the arts achieved their ultimate expression, in the vast displays contained within Paxton’s Crystal Palace?

There were, however, plenty of creative people who vehemently disagreed. Some even believed the so-called high point of British art and industry actually heralded the debasement and ruin of all that was genuine and true within the arts in particular and society in general…. Welcome to the world of William Morris, Edward Burne Jones, Walter Crane, and a whole host of fellow travellers – the pioneers of a great movement, which would eventually spread far beyond Britain.

We shall revel in the world of the Arts & Crafts movement, from the early days of Norman Shaw to the burgeoning of the Art Nouveau in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

RJW F2628 Online course (via Zoom)

5 weeks, Monday 21 September - Monday 19 October.

£65 (individual registration); £117 (for two people sharing one screen).