William Morris Tile Catalog

William Morris Acanthus staircase with Maine Coon Cat

Of all the paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path. ~Thomas Carlyle

Welcome

Welcome to William Morris Tile. I make tiles based on William Morris and William De Morgan designs and an increasingly wider circle around that: Morris-ish interests, Victorian culture and Victorian medievalism, early and later Arts and Crafts, Morris & Co., Pre-Raphaelite ceramics, the Rossetti Pre-Raphaelites. If you aren't familiar with William Morris and the Arts & Crafts movement, you might like to read my article, William Morris, The Soul of Arts and Crafts.

"But why William Morris?" you ask. Short answer: Because things are more than things; they carry meaning and meaning allows us to form our values. Arts & Crafts items are made by people for people, not by machines for money. Morris was reactionary to what he considered poor quality, cheap, and especially soulless mass-produced decorative art. Morris took freely from the interests of Victorian culture and combined them with his love of nature, of myth and medieval, taking what he wanted and leaving what he did not like, all without constraints of time and space. A design for one wall at Red House, his first married home built along the path Chaucer's pilgrims would have taken, was to be a fresco of the Fall of Troy, yet Morris chose 13th century ships for the Greeks. Another mural gives us a medieval feast, with William and Jane Morris as models for the King and Queen.

Browse by Designer, Tradition, or Project Type

The tiles here draw from a circle of artists who worked together, argued together, and changed the decorative arts. Each section links to an introduction and the full tile listings for that tradition. Further down, you'll find links to display all current images by Project Type (This is a work in progress so patience may be called for).

William Morris and Morris & Co.

These are primarily Morris tiles, both early and late, from Red House, Kelmscott, as well as by principals in the English Arts & Crafts movement. There's even a single Rossetti tile, found discarded on the floor of Merton Abbey (One can only imagine why). Tiles from textiles, tapestries, and early tile designs by or for Morris himself and members of his early circle such as Edward Burne-Jones, Philip Webb, artist Myles Birket Foster, and others.

Visual Gallery • Tiles from Textiles • Red House and Early Tiles

Arts & Crafts

Later English Arts & Crafts, the Glasgow School, and early American Arts & Crafts (Roycroft, East Aurora, California Arts & Crafts). Walter Crane, Jessie M. King, Margaret Macdonald, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, A.R. Valentien.

Glasgow School • California Botanicals

Victorian and Art Nouveau

The broader Victorian tradition: nursery tiles, botanicals, Art Nouveau, blue and white, and the decorative imagination of the era.

Victorian Nursery • Victorian Gallery • Louis Tiffany Grapevine

William De Morgan

Pre-Raphaelite ceramics master, William De Morgan first started working for Morris producing stained glass. When tile was introduced as part of the company's offerings, De Morgan asked to lead that line, bringing along all he had learned from his work with stained glass. Those lessons informed his glaze recipes and were, alas, never written down and never duplicated. Here you will find Persian-influenced tiles, lustre glazes, ships, peacocks, fantastic birds and beasts, and the great fireplace panels, as well as the Morris-De Morgan Collaboration, the 66-tile Membland Panels created for architect Myles Birket Foster.

De Morgan Gallery • Fireplaces and Backsplashes

Pre-Raphaelite

Tiles from Pre-Raphaelite paintings, mostly Morris contemporaries: Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Waterhouse.

Pre-Raphaelite Catalog

Medieval

Victorian medievalism: bestiaries, maps, celestials, gardens, and the mythic imagination that ran through Morris, Burne-Jones, and the Pre-Raphaelites.

Bestiary • Maps and Monsters

Projects Gallery

Fireplaces, backsplashes, bathrooms, and stair risers — tile organized by what you are building. These pages show current offerings sorted by application, updated daily.

Current Fireplace Tile Offerings

Current Backsplash and Border Offerings

Current Bathroom and Shower Offerings

Current Nursery, Stair Riser, and Sundry Offerings