Lost William Morris designs are being revived and completed for a new collection

Back in 1999, the UK controversially lost a portion of William Morris’ archive when the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in California won the bid to acquire it. Measures exist to prevent such cultural exports – for example, the UK government recently managed to keep an iconic Barbara Hepworth sculpture in the country, allowing institutions to raise the funds to purchase it. In 1999, however, no such intervention occurred, and the Morris materials went to the US.

Now, Morris & Co. – the original company founded by Morris, today part of the Sanderson Design Group, a luxury interior furnishings brand – is partnering with The Huntington to present The Unfinished Works, a new collection of 26 designs derived from previously incomplete sketches by Morris and his creative director, John Henry Dearle.

The collaboration began when The Huntington found over 50 unfinished works in its archive. These pieces, spanning a variety of mediums including fabrics, wallpapers, tiles and stained glass, existed in varying stages of completion. Their discovery sparked the idea for Morris & Co. to bring these dormant designs to life.

The Unfinished Works features a range of designs – from wallpapers and borders to fabrics, weaves and embroideries. The colour palette is drawn directly from Morris & Co.’s historical logbooks, ensuring authentic pigmentation and tonal accuracy.

Produced in the Morris & Co. studio in Chiswick, London, and manufactured at the brand’s historic UK factories in Loughborough and Lancaster, the collection is not just about recreating the past. It also adds a contemporary layer to the work, in the pioneering spirit of Morris himself. The creative team used Morris and Dearle’s notes and references as both blueprint and inspiration – interpreting them through a contemporary lens. This project bridges both time and geography – uniting the present-day Morris & Co. with its 19th-century origins, and reconnecting the UK-based company with the archive that had once seemed lost.

‘As artists, we’ve asked ourselves not what we should do, but what we can do to preserve, refine and complete these exquisite pieces of archival art, making them relevant not only to today but also to the future as part of art history,’ says lead designer Jess Clayworth. ‘The “Co.” in Morris & Co. is alive and well in The Unfinished Works.’

William Morris (1834-896) was a towering figure of the nineteenth century – a political theorist, publisher, environmental campaigner, poet and, of course, designer. He founded Morris & Co. in 1861, which grew into a thriving Arts & Crafts business. In reawakening its unfinished works, the brand reconnects the threads of a remarkable legacy in a true testament to the enduring relevance of Morris’s vision.

The collection will be available through Morris & Co.'s website and selected retailers