The Myth of the Sunflower: Oscar Wilde, the De Morgans and Aestheticism

“Discover why the British aesthetes turned to the humble sunflower to express their beautiful artistic ideals in the late-19th century.”

“From William De Morgan’s sunflower tile designs, to Evelyn De Morgan’s Clytie and The Bells of San Vito paintings, to William Morris’ Sunflower wallpaper, Edward Burne Jones’ stained glass windows, Thomas Jekyll’s metalwork designs, G. F. Watts’ sculpture to Christina Rossetti’s nursery rhyme and the colour of the ‘Greenery Yallery’ of the newly opened Grosvenor Gallery, where Evelyn De Morgan and other pioneering artists exhibited their work, sunflowers were the height of fashion and the symbol of a movement.”

Lecture by Hannah Squire, BA, MRes (University of Birmingham).