Women Pioneers of the Arts and Craft Movement

Karen Livingstone will be introducing her book Women Pioneers of the Arts and Crafts Movement recently published by the V&A and Thames and Hudson in the UK and America. Women Pioneers of the Arts and Crafts Movement is a celebration of the work and ambition of the women who were at the heart of the most influential art and design movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It shines a light on the vital contribution of figures such as May Morris, Gertrude Jekyll, Annie Garnett and many others, and describes the Arts and Crafts Movement from the perspective of these women who worked against the odds as artists, makers, teachers, authors and entrepreneurs.

Karen Livingstone is Deputy Director (Masterplan, Exhibitions and Design) at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. She is a Fellow of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Previously she has held senior and curatorial roles at the Science Museum Group, UK, the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums. She was curator of the V&A exhibition ‘International Arts and Crafts’ in 2005, and her publications include the accompanying catalogue International Arts and Crafts (co-edited with Linda Parry), Essential Arts and Crafts (2005), C.F.A Voysey, Arts and Crafts Designer (with Linda Parry and Max Donnelly, 2016) and Voysey’s Birds and Animals (2020).