Anarchy & Beauty: William Morris And His Legacy, 1860-1960

From the Pre-Raphaelites to Terence Conran, this is the first exhibition devoted to William Morris and his influence on twentieth-century life.

It will focus on Morris’s far-reaching politics, thought and design. With portraits, furniture, books, banners, textiles and jewellery, this exhibition will include many extraordinary loans that will be brought together in London for the first time.

Key exhibits include William Morris’s own handwritten Socialist Diary from the British Library, his gold-tooled handbound copy of Karl Marx’s Le Capital, lent from the Wormsley Library and Burne-Jones’s spectacular handpainted Prioresses Tale wardrobe coming from the Ashmolean in Oxford.

C R Ashbee’s Peacock brooch from the V&A will be joined by Eric Gill’s erotic garden roller, Adam and Eve, from Leeds City Art Gallery and Edward Carpenter’s sandals from Sheffield Archive – the sandals that began the sandal-wearing craze amongst the English left-wing intelligentsia.