Image: Shimane Art Museum, Matsue
The Shimane Art Museum in Matsue will present ‘Arts and Crafts and Design: From William Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright’ from September 11 through November 3, 2026. The exhibition will bring together 168 works, including textiles, furniture, wallpapers, books, crafts and jewellery, to trace the development of the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain and its expansion into the United States.
The presentation will feature William Morris’s ‘Strawberry Thief’, one of the designer’s best-known patterns, alongside his ‘Trellis’, dated 1864, and May Morris’s ‘Honeysuckle’, dated 1883. Other works listed by the museum include George Washington Jack’s ‘Survill Armchair’, dating from around 1890, and a cut-glass fan-shaped vase. The exhibition is described as the first in the San’in region to provide a comprehensive account of the design trajectory from Morris to Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Arts and Crafts movement emerged in Britain during the latter half of the 19th century. Morris—who was a designer, thinker and poet—criticised the poor-quality goods produced through mass manufacturing and looked to pre-industrial society as an alternative model. The movement promoted the revival of handcraft, the integration of art with everyday life, and collaborative production among artists and craftspeople.
According to the museum’s exhibition outline, the movement later spread internationally. In the United States, architect Frank Lloyd Wright respected Morris and his circle while also arguing for the importance of machinery, pointing toward a different relationship between handcraft, industry and design. The exhibition presents this development against the movement’s wider pursuit of beauty and functionality rooted in daily life, which the museum identifies as a source of 20th-century modernist design.
The programme will include a free lecture on September 13 by Teikō Suzuki, a professor at Ochanomizu University, addressing the relationship between nature, beauty and craft in the modern world. Gallery talks led by museum curators are scheduled for September 26, October 11 and October 31. Free open-studio sessions on October 3 and 17 will invite visitors to design repeat patterns, while a September 27 lobby concert by guitarist Katsuhiko Beppu will focus on British music, including songs by the Beatles.
Additional activities include screenings of the Japanese-dubbed film ‘Alice in Wonderland’ on October 4 and a picture-book programme for children and families on October 18. The exhibition will be held in the museum’s special exhibition gallery. It will be closed on Tuesdays, except for September 22 and November 3. Opening hours are from 10am until 30 minutes after sunset in September, and from 10am to 6:30pm in October and November, with gallery admission ending 30 minutes before closing.
