Inspired by William Morris....

Several of the E17 Designers have made it into a great new exhibition at the William Morris gallery. 50 artists, which include Kirsten Schmidt, Anna Alcock, Stephen Kenny, Anja Jane and Sharon Church, have taken inspiration from the legendary William Morris from textile artists, ceramics and even film makers. So pop along and see how the artistic legacy of Morris still lives on through modern contemporary artists today, running until Christmas.

The exhibition has been listed as part of the Story of London, click here to read more.
The gallery have installed exhibits dotted throughout the building. In the hope that by hanging some of the works in the permanent galleries as well as the special exhibition space visitors will be inspired by relationships between 'old' and 'new'.

Some of the designers and their creations:

Anja Jane has created a beautiful woodcut style limited edition two-colour screenprint as part of the William Morris Series.

It would make a perfect personalised gift as a handmade screen-printed limited edition of 30.
Check out Anja's website for more info.

Anna Alcock and Kirsten Schmidt from Inky Cuttlefish have created this great relief and screen print onto fabric and paper, titled 'Forest Guardians'
Size: Diptych: 118cm x 72cm (each framed size) that makes 118 x 144cm when pieces hang next to each other.
Price (if applicable): £1000

Artist’s statement: How is your work inspired by William Morris?
Inspired by the quote 'Fellowship is life' , we set out to create a work that reflects the ethos of the arts and crafts movement and more specifically was inspired by William Morris, his life, work and writings. Working together we decided each to do a symbolic self-portrait with the title Forest Guardians. We have each brought our individual histories to this piece, with a specific focus on protection and nature. William Morris was inspired by a wide variety of cultures and decorative art, and as international artists born in another country we have brought this element to our pieces.

The decorative elements were key to making Forest Guardians autonomous, and we wanted to make ensure we were loyal to William Morris and his use of nature in repeat patterns, which we did with the border. We printed on fabric and used traditional relief printing techniques in homage to William Morris & Co.

William Morris was influenced and used a medieval style of decoration and flat simplified natural motifs – we used this as our foundation from which to work. Kirsten’s figure is inspired by a medieval German sculpture of a woman holding a lamb, and her border and dress are inspired by the medieval style of decoration.



Sharon Church has a great textile piece that includes many modern techniques such as hand machine embroidery and burnishing. To learn more about Sharon from i am inspired check out her website.