In a remarkable turn of events, one of the world's most extensive collections of works by British Arts and Crafts designer and utopian socialist William Morris is housed thousands of miles from his homeland on American soil. The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, established in San Marino, California in 1919 to house anglophile Henry E. Huntington's collection, has become a pilgrimage destination for Morris enthusiasts worldwide.

The institution houses the extraordinary private collection of Sanford and Helen Berger, recognized as one of the world's premier assemblages of 19th-century arts and crafts. This comprehensive archive includes an extensive collection from Morris & Co., the decorative arts manufacturer and retailer co-founded by the legendary designer, featuring artifacts spanning tapestries, wallpaper, books, and political pamphlets.

When The Huntington purchased this treasure trove for $5.5 million in 1999, much attention focused on the collection's showpiece items, including a Morris-designed stained-glass window measuring 20 feet by 10 feet. However, among the 7,850 objects were smaller, seemingly insignificant items that would prove to be invaluable: sketchbooks and parchments filled with unfinished drawings and paintings. These ephemeral pieces remained largely undisturbed for decades, representing seeds of ideas by Morris and his Pre-Raphaelite collaborators. Some were drawn in pencil, others painted in vivid color, and many were no larger than a matchbox, forming the basis of a time capsule waiting to be rediscovered.

In 2022, Lynsey Hand, The Huntington's retail business development manager, decided to unlock this potential while searching through the archives for designs that could have commercial appeal in the Library's store. "The store team and I met with Melinda McCurdy, the Library's curator of British art, to view the collection firsthand and gain a deeper appreciation of its remarkable scope," Hand explained. "Knowing how special our collection was, we wanted to find the most relevant and authentic partner to help bring these unfinished works to life."

Hand reached out to the British wallpaper and fabrics manufacturer Sanderson Design Group, which has owned Morris & Co. since the 1940s. The company's portfolio also includes Sanderson, Zoffany, Harlequin, Clarke & Clarke, and Scion. Hand proposed an unprecedented collaboration to complete the unfinished works.

Next month, Morris & Co. will unveil a groundbreaking collection of never-before-seen designs spanning wallpaper, fabrics, and borders. The company has spent two years meticulously completing the paintings and sketches originally envisioned by William Morris, his successor John Henry Dearle, and Dearle's son Duncan. Titled "The Unfinished Works," the collection features fabric starting at $126 per meter, wallpaper from $122 per roll, and borders from $60 per roll. This remarkable collection adds 50 new creations to the 250 designs already in circulation, marking the first new Morris & Co. designs in a century.

"Completing these artworks has been a dream come true for us," says Claire Vallis, Sanderson's design director, as she unfurls a roll of brightly patterned fabric across a table at Voysey House. This hangar-like 1902 Arts and Crafts building in Chiswick, London, has served as Sanderson Design Group's headquarters since 2024. "We've approached this in the best way possible – to finish them as intended," she continues, adjusting her thick-rimmed glasses to inspect the pattern against a copy of the original drawing. "We've recreated them as close as possible to the original, while creating repeats in designs that never had them because they were originally intended as stained glass or tapestries. Everything is painted by hand." She looks up and grins. "It's quite literally been a labor of love – Jess Clayworth, who is the lead designer on the project, found out she was pregnant at the start of the process and had the baby by the time this collection was born."

Vallis compares the project to detective work. "We've used our own archive extensively, which includes original wood blocks and first prints. Obviously, Morris relied heavily on symmetry, so we've tried to keep this in mind with everything we've done: from the brush marks to how the leaves are finished."

The team's archivist, Caitlin Stracey, appears with a Morris & Co. logbook that would have been used by Victorian block printers to review the design and colors of a pattern as it rolled off the presses. Much the same work is performed today on Sanderson's 100-year-old surface printers, which replicate hand block printing using semi-automated machines. "We have colored the designs using some of the original documents, and also incorporated colors from the archives, which actually feel fresh and modern," says Vallis. "We've even gone down the rabbit hole of researching what flowers might have been selected."

Stracey adds insight into the challenge: "The documents come from different sources and time periods, and the intended purpose was not always clear. Some items had little notes and annotations indicating what they were going to be, such as embroidery or a carpet, but others did not." Vallis nods in agreement. "It was like stepping back in time into Morris's shoes – and trying to do him justice," she reflects.

At a corner table where copies of The Huntington papers are assembled, Vallis points to a pencil drawing on parchment paper – a repeat of a single flower encircled by swirling stems of leaves. "See here," she says, "it's an inscription by William Morris. A goosebump moment." This design has been nicknamed "Chamomile," a nod to the daisy-like flowers that Morris sketched somewhere between 1865 and 1870. Even naming the new designs proved an interesting exercise, as Morris typically named designs after their smallest component, according to Vallis. Originally intended as an embroidery, the piece bears all the hallmarks of Morris's distinctive hand.

"What has been so fascinating about this project is that the designs are so familiar even though you've never seen them," Vallis observes. "You recognize the flow, which is so indicative of the Arts and Crafts movement. It would be wonderful if one of these could become the next Golden Lily," she adds, referring to a design created in 1899 by John Henry Dearle that remains instantly recognizable today.

John Henry Dearle's unfinished artworks form the foundation for several designs in the new collection. In one tiny sketch, believed to have been created for a carpet in the 1880s, he drew a repeating pattern of honeysuckle-like blooms within a grid, and in just one section, employed glorious brush strokes of pinks and greens to bring the design to life. Reimagined as a collection of wallpapers and fabrics, "Walthamstow" references the borough where Morris's family lived at Water House, now the William Morris Gallery. In another painting by Dearle from the same period, originally intended as wallpaper, large, blousy flowers peek from undulating stripes reminiscent of iron gate bars; these now feature in a design named "Cornflower."

"The embroideries are my favorite," Vallis says as they admire Voysey House's showroom: a space of riotous pattern and color where vast wallpaper panels are framed floor-to-ceiling and fabrics hang in rows. "We worked with several mills to create some really beautiful embroideries, and we've also produced jacquards. Many of those designs were originally intended to be carpets, so we've transposed them onto heavy tapestry-style fabric."

The collection includes innovative new twists as well. "We've taken little elements from the designs and made them into stripes and checks," Vallis continues. "And we've used warp printing techniques to create designs with a worn look. The possibilities are endless. We're also creating wall murals and we've been inspired to start producing borders again, too."

Completing the collection has been a career-defining moment for the team. "As designers, you go to college and hear about the work of William Morris, but then to suddenly be finishing a design he started... that is really something," Vallis reflects. Morris famously declared, "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." As she concludes, "We are Morris & Co., his original company. His legacy continues."