Walter Crane

Description

More than any other artist of the time Walter Crane appears at the center of the great surge of interest in the decorative arts in the late 19th century. He was a driving force behind the Arts and Crafts movement, a children’s book illustrator, designer of textiles, tiles, stained glass and ceramics, and a painter who enjoyed a reputation on the Continent as the most popular of the Pre-Raphaelites.

He began his artistic career as a book illustrator on the eve of the great publishing boom of the 1860s. Long before his name came to be associated with Kate Greenaway and Ralph Caldecott as the outstanding artists for the nursery, his brightly colored series of Toy Boys ensured him a wide reputation. He was later commissioned for wallpaper, fabrics, ceramics, mosaics, stained glass, and gesso relief. He later became the President of Art Workers’ Guild Exhibition Society, and a strenuous advocate of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Crane’s early paintings embody the romantic medievalism of Rossetti and Burne-Jones,but he soon used poetry and painting as a means to express his growing interest in new philosophical ideas. Ultimately he was converted to socialism – becoming a member of the Social Democratic Federation, the Fabians, and Morris’s Socialist League.

This is the first major study of Crane’s life and work to be published since his death in 1915.

Includes 150 illustrations, 24 in color.