William Morris’s designs evolve from craft to AI—new exhibition explores the tension

A new London exhibition explores how William Morris’s iconic designs have influenced everything from fashion to AI-generated art, highlighting the tension between his handcrafted ethos and modern mass production. The show, titled “Morris Mania,” reflects the Victorian designer’s enduring global impact while questioning how his vision of accessible beauty has been reinterpreted—and potentially distorted—in the age of digital reproduction and AI.

The big picture: The William Morris Gallery is celebrating its 75th anniversary by examining how the 19th-century British designer’s work has “gone viral” across cultures and technologies.

• The exhibition brings together original Morris works from the 1860s alongside modern interpretations, including AI-generated posters sold on online marketplaces like Temu.
• Director Hadrian Garrard highlights how the show examines the contradictions in Morris’s legacy—his desire to democratize beauty versus his commitment to quality craftsmanship.

Key details: “Morris Mania” features an eclectic mix of objects showcasing the designer’s global influence across unexpected domains.

• The exhibition includes personal items donated by the public, such as hand-embroidered Kashmiri wedding jackets worn by a couple who held their reception at the gallery.
• More unusual exhibits include a rose-patterned seat from a British nuclear submarine, a Morris-inspired football shirt worn by Walthamstow FC players, and a Japanese yukata featuring Hello Kitty figures alongside Morris-style birds and foliage.

The cultural significance: The exhibition explores how Morris’s designs evolved from symbols of craftsmanship to markers of taste and luxury.

• As a founding member of the Arts and Crafts movement, Morris championed handcrafted work made under fair conditions while believing beauty should be accessible to all.
• The gallery is commissioning new objects “from people who make things very well in Britain,” including a luxurious Axminster carpet, to represent the high-quality craftsmanship Morris advocated.

Why it matters: The exhibition raises questions about the meaning of democratized design in an era of mass production and AI generation.

• Morris’s vision of beauty accessible to all has been realized in ways he couldn’t have imagined—from museum gift shops making his work available to the masses to AI algorithms creating endless variations of his style.
• Garrard suggests Morris would welcome the exhibition’s critical examination of how his legacy has been interpreted: “I think the fact that we’re looking at this stuff thinking, ‘What does it mean?’—I think Morris would really welcome that.”