John Henry Dearle

John Henry Dearle (22 August 1859 – 15 January 1932) was a British textile and stained-glass designer trained by the artist and craftsman William Morris who was much influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Dearle always remained close to Morris's aesthetic, but from the 1890s onward he incorporated a distinctive set of Persian and Turkish influences.

[2] He began his career as an assistant in Morris & Co.'s retail showroom in Oxford Street in 1878,[3] and then transferred to the company's glass painting workshop, where he worked mornings and studied design in the afternoons.

[7] Dearle also designed embroidery panels for screens and portieres in the Art Needlework style under the tutelage of May Morris,[8] including Anemone (1895–90), and the well-known Owl and Pigeon (or Partridge) (c. 1895).

As late as 1981, the catalog of an exhibit of Morris & Co. textiles dismissed Dearle's style as "rarely more than a pastiche of his master's",[11] citing as a source Lewis F. Day's assessment of 1905.

"Summer", detail from a tapestry called The Seasons or Orchard, woven by Morris & Co. in wool, silk, and mohair on a cotton ground at Merton Abbey in 1890, designed by William Morris and John Henry Dearle.
Screen with embroidered panels, 1885-1910, designed by John Henry Dearle V&A Museum no. CIRC.848-1956
Seaweed wallpaper, 1890s
Artichoke wallpaper, c. 1897