The Women's Guild of Arts was founded in 1907 by Arts and Crafts artists

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 ...

and

Mary Elizabeth Turner Mary Elizabeth Turner (née Powell; 1854–1907) was an English embroiderer who exhibited her work at the 1890 exposition of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, for which she wrote an essay on modern embroidery. Identified with the Arts ...

. The organisation offered female artists an alternative to the

Art Workers Guild The Art Workers' Guild is an organisation established in 1884 by a group of British painters, sculptors, architects, and designers associated with the ideas of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. The guild promoted the 'unity of a ...

, the artists' association established in 1884 and based on the ideas of

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 ...

and the Arts and Crafts Movement, as this was not open to women.See also the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry on the Women's Guild of Arts
/ref> The Women's Guild was established with May Morris as its First President and watercolourist and engraver

Mary Annie Sloane Mary Annie Sloane (10 December 1867 – 30 November 1961) was an English artist associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. Life She was born in Leicester, an area which was the subject of many of her prints. She studied at Leicester Schoo ...

as its Honorary Secretary. Other members included

Agnes Garrett Agnes Garrett (12 July 1845 – 1935)Serena Kelly"Garrett, Agnes (1845–1935)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved 9 January 2015. was an English suffragist and interior designer and the founder i ...

Mary Lowndes Mary Lowndes (1857–1929) was a British stained-glass artist who co-founded the stained glass studio and workshop Lowndes and Drury in 1897. She was an influential leader in the Arts and Crafts movement, not only for her stained glass work a ...

Marianne Stokes Marianne Stokes (née Preindlsberger; 1855–1927) was an Austrian painter. She settled in England after her marriage to Adrian Scott Stokes (1854–1935), the landscape painter, whom she had met in Pont-Aven. Stokes was considered one of the le ...

Evelyn De Morgan Evelyn De Morgan (30 August 1855 – 2 May 1919), née Pickering, was an English painter associated early in her career with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, and working in a range of styles including Aestheticism and Symboli ...

, Georgie Gaskin and Mary J. Newill.

Notes

References

* Elletson, Helen, ''May Morris, Hammersmith and the Women's Guild of Arts'' (pp. 141–154) in Hulse, Lynn, editor ''May Morris: Art & Life. New Perspectives'', Friends of the William Morris Gallery, 2017 .

External links

Women's Guild of Arts Invitation Card
at

William Morris Gallery The William Morris Gallery is a museum devoted to the life and works of William Morris, an English Arts and Crafts designer and early socialist. It is located in Walthamstow at Water House, a substantial Grade II* listed Georgian home. The ext ...

1907 establishments in the United Kingdom Arts organisations based in the United Kingdom Arts organizations established in 1907 Women's organisations based in the United Kingdom {{UK-org-stub