John Henry Dearle (22 August 1859 – 15 January 1932) was a British

textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

and

stained-glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

trained by the artist and craftsman

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

who was much influenced by the

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

. Dearle designed many of the later

wallpaper Wallpaper is a material used in interior decoration to decorate the interior walls of domestic and public buildings. It is usually sold in rolls and is applied onto a wall using wallpaper paste. Wallpapers can come plain as "lining paper" (so t ...

s and textiles released by Morris & Co., and contributed background and foliage patterns to

tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...

designs featuring figures by

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...

and others. Beginning in his teens as a shop assistant and then design apprentice, Dearle rose to become Morris & Co.'s chief designer by 1890, creating designs for tapestries,

embroidery Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen on c ...

, wallpapers, woven and printed textiles, stained glass, and carpets. Following Morris's death in 1896, Dearle was appointed Art Director of the firm, and became its principal stained glass designer on the death of Burne-Jones in 1898. Morris's reputation overshadowed Dearle's work throughout Dearle's career: Dearle exhibited early patterns under Morris's name and Dearle designs continue to be sold as Morris patterns. Critical assessment of Dearle's work then underwent a significant change during the final decades of the twentieth century, recognizing Dearle's mature work as having a unique artistic vision of its own. Dearle always remained close to Morris's aesthetic, but from the 1890s onward he incorporated a distinctive set of

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

n and Turkish influences.

Career

Dearle was born in Camden Town, north London, in 1859.Parry, Linda: ''William Morris Textiles'', p. 64 He began his career as an assistant in Morris & Co.'s retail showroom in Oxford Street in 1878,Parry, Linda: ''Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement'', Thames and Hudson, revised edition 2005, p. 122 and then transferred to the company's

glass painting Painted glass refers to two different techniques of decorating glass, both more precisely known by other terms. Firstly, and more correctly, it means enamelled glass, normally relatively small vessels which have been painted with preparations of ...

workshop, where he worked mornings and studied design in the afternoons.Waggoner, Diane: ''The Beauty of Life: William Morris & the Art of Design'', Thames and Hudson, 2003, p. 99–107 Morris recognized Dearle's talents as a draftsman, and took him on as his tapestry apprentice. Morris had finished his first solo effort at tapestry in September 1879,Parry, Linda: ''William Morris Textiles'', New York, Viking Press, p. 103–04 and shortly thereafter Morris and Dearle set up a tapestry loom at Queen Square. Dearle executed Morris & Co.'s first figural tapestry from a design by

Walter Crane Walter Crane (15 August 184514 March 1915) was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and K ...

in 1883. Dearle was soon responsible for the training of all tapestry apprentices in the workshop and partnered with Morris on designing details such as fabric patterns and floral backgrounds for tapestries based on figure drawings or ''cartoons'' by Burne-Jones (some of them repurposed from stained glass cartoons) and animal figures by

Philip Webb Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of common ...

. In the late 1880s, Dearle began designing repeating patterns for wallpapers and textiles, and it is likely that his designs for large-scale embroideries also date from around this time.Parry, Linda: ''William Morris Textiles'', p. 30–31 From 1890, Dearle was head designer for the firm, handling interior design commissions and supervising the tapestry,

weaving Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal th ...

, and fabric-printing departments at Merton Abbey He was appointed Art Director of Morris & Co. following Morris's death in 1896. Dearle managed the company's textile works at Merton Abbey until his death in 1932.

Designs

Fabric and wallpaper designs attributed to Henry Dearle include ''Cherwell'' (registered 1887), ''Trent'' (1888), ''Persian Brocatel'' (c. 1890), ''Daffodil'' (c. 1891), ''Compton'' (1896), ''Tulip'' (1895-1900), ''Artichoke'' (1897), and ''Persian'' or ''New Persian'' (1905).Parry, Linda: ''William Morris Textiles'', p. 150–72 Dearle also designed embroidery panels for screens and portieres in the

Art Needlework Art needlework was a type of surface embroidery popular in the later nineteenth century under the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts Movement. Artist and designer William Morris is credited with the resurrection of the tech ...

style under the tutelage of

May Morris Mary "May" Morris (25 March 1862 – 17 October 1938) was an English artisan, embroidery designer, jeweller, socialist, and editor. She was the younger daughter of the Pre-Raphaelite artist and designer William Morris and his wife and artists' m ...

, including ''Anemone'' (1895–90), and the well-known ''Owl'' and ''Pigeon'' (or ''Partridge'') (c. 1895). Examples of the latter two designs worked on "Oak" silk damask grounds by Mrs. Battye are in the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

Critical assessment

Henry Dearle's contributions to textile design were long overshadowed by the towering figure of William Morris. However, Dearle originally exhibited his designs under the Morris name rather than his own, especially in the Arts and Crafts Exhibitions and the major Morris retrospective of 1899,Parry, Linda: ''William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement: A Sourcebook'', New York, Portland House, 1989, p. 9-10 and even today many Dearle designs are popularly offered as "William Morris" patterns. As late as 1981, the catalog of an exhibit of Morris & Co. textiles dismissed Dearle's style as "rarely more than a pastiche of his master's",Fairclough, Oliver and Emmeline Leary, ''Textiles by William Morris and Morris & Co. 1861–1940'', Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1981, p. 15 citing as a source Lewis F. Day's assessment of 1905. But by 1989, textile historians had begun recognizing Dearle's talents as a designer. Linda Parry, a curator of textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum, has suggested that the incorporation of

Near NEAR or Near may refer to: People * Thomas J. Near, US evolutionary ichthyologist * Near, a developer who created the higan emulator Science, mathematics, technology, biology, and medicine * National Emergency Alarm Repeater (NEAR), a form ...

and

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

ern designs in Morris & Co. textiles from the late 1880s may show the influence of Dearle's taste. Parry identifies Dearle's mature artistic voice from the 1890s in designs such as ''Seaweed'' wallpaper, ''Tulip'' woven fabric and ''Eden'' printed cotton, the latter reflecting Dearle's interest in Turkish and

n textiles in the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert).Parry, Linda: ''William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement: A Sourcebook'', New York, Portland House, 1989, p. 9–10 and Plate 12a

Notes

References

*Coote, Stephen: ''William Morris: His Life and Work'', Smithmark Publishers, 1995, *Fairclough, Oliver and Emmeline Leary, ''Textiles by William Morris and Morris & Co. 1861-1940'', Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, 1981, *Parry, Linda, "Textiles", in ''The Earthly Paradise: Arts and Crafts by Wiliam Morris and his Circle in Canadian Collections'', edited by Katharine A. Lochnan, Douglas E. Schoenherr, and Carole Silver, Key Porter Books, 1993, *Parry, Linda, ed.: ''William Morris'', Abrams, 1996, *Parry, Linda: ''William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement: A Sourcebook'', New York, Portland House, 1989 *Parry, Linda: ''William Morris Textiles'', New York, Viking Press, 1983, *Parry, Linda: ''Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement'', Thames and Hudson, revised edition 2005, *Waggoner, Diane: ''The Beauty of Life: William Morris & the Art of Design'', Thames and Hudson, 2003,

External links

Morris & Co. at Merton Abbey
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dearle, John Henry British textile designers 1859 births 1932 deaths Morris & Co. People from the London Borough of Camden