FABRICATING THE WORLD | WILLIAM MORRIS TEXTILES in the Art Gallery of South Australia with Rebecca Evans

The Art Gallery of South Australia is fortunate to hold the most comprehensive collection of Morris & Co. furnishing outside of the United Kingdom. These interiors signified the taste, status and identity of the Barr Smith family and by extension proclaimed Adelaide as cosmopolitan city. This lecture will examine key works from the Gallery’s collection with particular focus on embroidered textiles.

REBECCA EVANS is the Curator of Decorative Arts and Design, Art Gallery of South Australia. With specialisations in jewellery, textiles and fashion she has curated a number of exhibitions and displays including Catherine Truman, 2016; Paolo Sebastian X, 2017; To have and Hold, the Daalder collection of contemporary jewellery, 2018.

Rebecca has lectured at The Johnston Collection since 2015. She has spoken on COLONIAL FASHION | Wearing identity (2015); BY YON BONNIE BRAE | Scottish Migration and the Wool Industry in Colonial Australia (2016) and WILLIAM MORRIS & the interiors of Adelaide’s most fashionable houses 1880-1929 (2017)

This lecture is part of the FABRICATING THE WORLD | A Survey of the Global History of Textiles continues a series of lectures especially convened by Susan Scollay for TJC.

Morris & Company, London (Britain, 1861 – 1940) 
May Morris, designer (Britain, 1862 – 1938)
Erlistoun Mitchell, embroiderer (Australia, 1868 – 1913)
Fruit garden portiere, circa 1890 – circa 1895, designed circa 1890, London, embroidered circa 1895, Adelaide
silk embroidery on Oak damask silk | 2330 x 1610 mm
Bequest of Joanna Erlistoun Simpson (née Thomson) through the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation, 2018
Collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (20194A83)