A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites

A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites opens at the Fitzwilliam Museum on 23 October and runs through to 3 May 2027, taking over Galleries 11, 12 and 13. It's a long run, so there's plenty of time to fit it in over the winter.

Most of us know William Morris for his wallpaper and textiles, and the exhibition does start there, but it goes beyond the decorative motifs and medieval love stories. It looks at the collective vision and shared belief of the Arts and Crafts Movement: the idea that art and beauty could drive positive social change. Morris is presented as one of the world's most influential thinkers on art, craft and design, and the show sets his work alongside the Pre-Raphaelites to show how radical social ideals intertwined with the making of beautiful things.

That means you'll see more than just patterns. The rooms bring together paintings, drawings, textiles, ceramics and more by Kate Faulkner, May Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal, including rarely seen examples from the museum's own collection. It's a good way to see how the different mediums worked together, and to see the people who shared that same circle.

If you want to take something home, there's an exhibition catalogue published by Philip Wilson Publishers (Bloomsbury), edited by Jan Marsh and Karen Livingstone with a foreword by Luke Syson. Tickets are £16, free for members, with concessions available. Entry is by timeslot, 10am to 4pm Tuesday to Saturday and 12pm to 4pm on Sundays, so you'll need to book your slot in advance.