Summary

A framed and glazed photograph of the socialist, designer, craftsman and poet William Morris (1834-1896). The photograph is an enlarged copy after the platinotype made by the artist-photographer Frederick Hollyer (1837-1933) in 1886. Shaw’s copy was possibly printed by his friend Sir Emery Walker (1851-1933), the engraver, printer and photographer, whose firm Walker & Boutall produced a photogravure after the Hollyer original. The bust-length portrait shows Morris with his characteristic full beard, famously described by Shaw as ‘Dureresque’. The photograph was taken on 8th November 1886 in Hollyer’s studio, when Morris was accompanied by Shaw and May Morris (1862-1938) whose portraits were also taken. Although Shaw’s Fabian Socialism differed from Morris’s more revolutionary ideals, the designer nevertheless had a profound impact on Shaw’s aesthetic awareness and appreciation of art. Shaw hung the portrait of Morris in various rooms in his London flats, and thereafter in his study at Ayot, a testament to the significance of the sitter on his life and work. The same photograph of Morris is on display in the dining room at Emery Walker’s home, 7 Hammersmith Terrace, where Shaw was a frequent visitor.

Full description

The twelve-year friendship Shaw had with the socialist, designer, craftsman, and poet William Morris (1834-1896) was one of the most important in Shaw’s long life. Upon Morris’s death in 1896, Shaw wrote: ‘I feel nothing but elation when I think of Morris. My intercourse with him was so satisfying that I should be the most ungrateful of men if I asked for more. You can lose a man like that by your own death, but not by his.’ (Shaw 1896 [1932], p. 217). Morris was also responsible for discovering the adjective form of Shaw’s surname. Shaw explained the origins of the use of the word “Shavian” to his biographer Hesketh Pearson: “The Word Shavian [...] began when William Morris found in a medieval MS. by one Shaw the marginal comment ‘Sic Shavius, sed inepte.’” (Shaw quoted in Hesketh Pearson, Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality, 1942, p.97). Shaw first met Morris at meetings of the revolutionary Social Democratic Federation (SDF) held at Kelmscott House in Hammersmith in 1884, and lectured there in July of that year. Shaw’s Socialism gravitated towards the Fabian Society’s ideal of social reform by non-violent means however, and although Morris undoubtedly contributed to Shaw’s political development, he would actually have a more profound impact on the playwright’s aesthetic awareness. Writing to his friend Sydney Cockerell in 1897 shortly after Morris’s death, Shaw declared ‘there was really a more complete understanding between us on art than on politics.’ (Shaw to Sydney Cockerell, 15 December 1897, Bernard F. Burgunder Collection). Attempting to explain his relationship many years later Shaw wrote to Harold Laski: ‘Morris was in one respect in the same position as myself in the movement. We were both Aestheticists having to work with hopeless Philistines’ (27 July 1945, Shaw 1988, p. 749). Originally famous for writing poems such as The Earthly Paradise, Morris is now best remembered for the textile and wallpaper designs produced for his firm Morris & Co., and for establishing the Kelmscott Press. Indeed Shaw himself placed greater emphasis on Morris’s creativity in this regard, proclaiming that ‘he was ultra-modern – not merely up to date, but far ahead of it: his wall papers, his hangings, his tapestries, and his printed books have the twentieth century in every touch of them.’ (Shaw 1896 [1932], p. 211). With the Kelmscott Press Shaw believed Morris ‘did a greater service to society than by establishing the Socialist League.’ (Shaw 1896, p. 325). Shaw’s framed photograph of Morris is an enlarged copy after the platinotype made by the artist-photographer Frederick Hollyer (1837-1933). Hollyer specialised in photogravure reproductions of paintings, however from the early 1880s his studio was open on Mondays for portrait photography. Whilst Morris posed for Hollyer on several occasions, this particular image dating to November 1886 had personal significance for Shaw as he was present at the sitting. Shaw also sat for three portraits by Hollyer on the same day. (See V&A Museum, London, ‘Portraits of Many Persons of Note Photographed by Frederick Hollyer’, reference 7660-1938, 7661-1938. The third portrait is reproduced on the cover of 'Bernard Shaw Collected Letters 1874-1897,' ed., Laurence, see Shaw 1965). Shaw’s diary entry for Monday 8th November 1886 reads: ‘Hollyer’s. 9 Pembroke Square, Earl’s Court, at 11.30 to meet the Morrises and got photographed’ (Shaw 1986, p. 211). Morris’s daughter May had written to Shaw asking him to accompany them to Hollyer’s studio (May Morris to Shaw, British Library Add. MS 50541). A photogravure of the Morris portrait by Hollyer was printed and published by Shaw’s friend Emery Walker, the celebrated process-engraver and photographer, and Shaw’s copy may have been printed by Walker. The same photograph of Morris is on display in the dining room at Emery Walker’s home, 7 Hammersmith Terrace, where Shaw was a frequent visitor. A version of the print by Walker’s firm Walker & Boutall can be found in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG x3759). The NPG have assigned the date 1884 (MacCarthy 2014, p. 12), however the words ‘William Morris aet 52’ appears on the image, which suggests that Shaw’s date of 1886 is correct. The V&A has dated the Hollyer photographs of Shaw to circa 1890, but owing to the evidence provided by Shaw’s diaries the date of 8th November 1886 can now be assigned with some certainty. The choice of Hollyer, a photographer who was closely associated with members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Aesthetic Movement, by the Morrises can hardly be surprising, but in the case of Shaw it would prove equally apposite, anticipating his keen interest in photography as an art form which he developed during the late 1890s. Shaw recorded that Hollyer’s fee was 21 shillings, a large sum for an impoverished journalist. (Shaw 1986, p.214). Morris’s portrait was published in the more exclusive artistic journals of the day (The Art Journal, 1899), yet it was also widely reproduced in the pages of the popular press (The Illustrated London News, 10 October 1896). Hollyer was increasingly known for his celebrity portraiture, and this too foreshadows Shaw’s later preoccupation with his self-image in the media. According to Shaw this particular Hollyer photograph made Morris look sixty-five rather than in his early fifties (Shaw 1899, p. 208). Yet he greatly admired Morris’s ‘Olympian coronet of clustering hair’ (Shaw 1921, p.131), the ‘tossing mane which suggested that his objection to looking-glasses extended to brushes and combs’ (Shaw, 1936, p. 15). Equally there was much to admire in Morris’s ‘Dureresque beard’ which gave him the look of ‘the Jovian God in Raphael’s Vision of Ezekiel’ Shaw felt.(Shaw 1921, p.131). Various reminiscences and photographic records provide evidence that the Hollyer photograph of Morris took pride of place in all Shaw’s residences dating back to his London flat at Adelphi Terrace. The photograph can be seen hanging on the wall in the drawing room at Adelphi Terrace in 1902, in a press image of Shaw (The Sketch, 12 March 1902; British Library Add. MS 50582A, f.13v; NPG x136852). Shaw subsequently kept Hollyer’s portrait of Morris on the wall in his study at the Whitehall Court flat in London: the framed image is discernible in a press photograph by Alexander Stewart ("Sasha") of Shaw’s study there in 1934 (Getty Images 3311218). A copy of the portrait is also on view in a photograph taken by Shaw of a bedroom there (see NT 1715212.41). His secretary Blanche Patch recorded seeing the portrait at Whitehall Court in her memoir, although she does not mention the room. (Patch 1951, p. 27). A later copy of the Morris photograph by Hollyer can be found at NT 1715224.70.Today the Hollyer portrait of Morris can be seen hanging in the study at Shaw’s Corner next to his writing desk, and was positioned there by Shaw at some point during the 1940s when he was arranging the interiors in preparation for occupation by the National Trust. The portrait of Morris was brought up from Whitehall Court to join a framed photographic portrait of the economist Philip H. Wicksteed (1274678). These photographs were positioned either side of Shaw’s writing desk along the east-facing wall, perhaps to show the dual influences on his socialistic thought. In terms of aesthetics, Shaw’s vision was profoundly shaped by Morris; however his economic theories owed more to Wicksteed. A press photograph dating to March 1951 shows an image of Shaw’s study with the portraits of Wicksteed and Morris flanking the desk. This photograph was one of several published in the press to celebrate the opening of Shaw’s Corner to the public (The Illustrated London News, 17 March 1951). The precise arrangement of the Morris and Wicksteed portraits was changed by the National Trust in 2000 when the photograph of Wicksteed was moved to the opposite wall (next to the doorway), to allow the Aubrey Beardsley drawing to be positioned out of direct light for conservation reasons. As a token of her regard for Shaw, May Morris presented him with the 2-volume set of William Morris: Artist, Writer, Socialist, ed. May Morris (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1936) when it was published in 1936. Shaw’s well-known essay ‘Morris as I Knew Him’ (London: William Morris Society, 1966, [1936]), was originally published as an introductory preface to Volume Two. Volume One remains in Shaw’s library (NT 3063415) and bears an inscription from May Morris to Shaw: ‘To G. Bernard Shaw. Affectionate remembrances from May Morris, 1 July 1936.’ (Volume Two is missing). The Collected Works of William Morris (NT 3062770) are also in Shaw’s library. (Alice McEwan, 2017).