Drawing on Genius

A collection of long-hidden, newly-completed archival works debuts from Morris & Co – by way of two devoted California collectors

By Maile Pingel

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In 1999, the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino acquired an extraordinary private collection of works by William Morris, founder of the British Arts and Crafts movement, from Berkeley and Carmel-based collectors Sanford and Helen Berger. Among the books, objects, samples, tools, photographs, and business records, another treasure was discovered: a collection of unfinished designs. Begun by Morris, and his successor, textile and stained glass designer John Henry Dearle, twenty-six of the motifs have now been completed in partnership with the Huntington by contemporary designers from Morris & Co. Debuting this fall as The Unfinished Works, the collection of wallpaper, printed and woven fabrics, borders, embroideries, and jacquards is an exquisite collaboration across time.

How, exactly, did such an important cache of British decorative arts emerge in California? It is in large part due to Berkeley couple Sanford and Helen Berger, Harvard-trained architects and Arts & Crafts enthusiasts. The collectors were active members of the William Morris Society—their European vacations were planned around the group’s London events—as well as of the San Francisco arm of the Roxburghe Club, a bibliophilic and publishing society which originated in nineteenth-century England. The Bergers acquired an archive from the descendants of John Henry Dearle in 1968, and proceeded to build upon it for the next thirty years. When the couple retired to Carmel-by-the-Sea, they dedicated an entire floor of their home to housing the collection.

In 1999, the Huntington acquired the Sanford and Helen Berger Collection—”one of the world’s premier assemblages of 19th-century Arts and Crafts material,” notes the museum—
but it wasn’t until 2022 that they began exploring the long-hidden, unfinished designs with an eye to reintroducing them to the world. Lynsey Hand, the Huntington’s Retail Business Development Manager, along with Melinda McCurdy, Curator of British Art, invited London-based Morris & Co. Lead Designers Jess Clayworth and Amy Deane-Boyd to California to see the works themselves.

Clayworth recalls the exhilaration of seeing the pieces for the first time, as well as the nerves that set in facing such a task. “You’re editing someone else’s work, but this is someone—Morris or Dearle—with an eagle-eyed following and tremendous historical gravitas,” she says. “You already have the design, so how do you complete it, honoring the intention of the original author? Those big questions stretched my skill as an artist.”

Once back in the UK, the designers leaned into the company’s archive in Chiswick to study similar documents and period color logs to help guide what would be the twenty-six new patterns. With prints like Wild Tulip & Vine in a colorway called Rose/Bayleaf; Lent Lily in Indigo/Madder; and Walthamstow (named for Morris’ birthplace in North London) in Forest/Teal, just studying the choices is a primer in nineteenth-century style.

“What struck us was how familiar many of the patterns felt,” says Claire Vallis, Design Director of Morris & Co. “You instantly know they are Morris, and I can see so many future icons in this series that will take their place next to Pimpernel and Strawberry Thief.”

The Unfinished Works and Morris & Co. collections are available through Una Malan.

The Huntington’s Morris collections are housed in both the Library and the Art Museum.

Drawing on Genius

By Maile Pingel

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