Online Autumn Lecture Series
Crossing Boundaries: Victorian art, Design and Architecture
We are used to the idea of Victorian architecture, art and design as separate disciplines, with their own historians. But that seriously misrepresents the way that many nineteenth-century architects and designers thought and practiced. They conceived of the fine and decorative arts as part of an architectural whole – a total work of art.
These lectures will boldly break down disciplinary boundaries in a discussion of the use of colour and texture across the whole range of Victorian design and analyses of the important roles played by mosaic, stained glass, embroidery and three-dimensional wall coverings.
‘Fair and Beautiful to Behold’ – Ecclesiastical Embroideries
Tue 12 November, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm
This is a lecture on the neo-Gothic in relation to textiles and wallpapers, which focuses on ecclesiastical embroideries (and some interiors) in particular. It’s called ‘Fair and Beautiful to Behold’ after a quotation from G.E. Street. It spills into the Edwardian period to include a Pankhurst banner and Ann Macbeth frontal, to bring out the double meaning of ‘fair’ (in social/political terms).
As a predominantly freelance historian since 1991, Mary Schoeser MA FRSA has written about 200 diverse publications (books, chapters and magazine articles), which include Silk (Yale University Press, 2007), Textiles: The Art of Mankind (Thames & Hudson, 2012 and 2013) and The Art of Wallpaper: Morris & Co. in Context (ACC Art Books, 2022 and 2024). For nine years in the 1980s the Archivist for Warner & Sons and thereafter an archive consultant to numerous firms including Laura Ashley, Liberty, Orla Keily and Sanderson, her knowledge of British manufacturers extends to a sound understanding of textile and wallpaper production itself. This has facilitated restoration work with English Heritage, the National Trust and other historic property owners. She is Patron of the Bernat Klein Foundation and also of the School of Textiles, Coggeshall.
All attendees will be sent a recording of the talk.
Image: Pugin 1825-6 in Ackermann’s Repository