Collection: Talwin Morris

Talwin Morris (1865-1911) was a prolific book designer and artist known for his Glasgow Style book designs.

Initially trained as an architect, he began a graphic design career as sub art-editor for the magazine Black & White. He is best remembered today for his book designs for  publishers Blackie & Son.

Morris’s book designs became influential in a move away from the pictorial bindings of the Victorian era to a more modern approach where line, curve and decoration were used. At Blackie & Son he produced many designs that were printed in different colourways across for example the Red Letter Library and Library of Famous Books. He also designed covers for Morison Bros of Glasgow, Cassell, J. G. Cotta of Stuttgart, F. Volckmar, Mudie’s Select Library, and Blackie subsidiary Gresham. In 1906 he designed the cover of the influential German arts magazine Dekorative Kunst.

His work often features his 'signature' of a single dot followed by a further two dots (a rendition of his initials in Morse code), or an elongated TM monogram.

Morris moved to Glasgow in 1893, becoming a friend to artists and designers associated with the Glasgow School of Art, though he himself never attended. He became close friends with Charles Rennie Mackintosh and his contemporaries, and his own work subsequently incorporated a Glasgow Style.

In 1902, his work was selected for exhibition alongside those of his Glasgow contemporaries at the influential International Exposition of Modern Decorative Arts held in Turin, at which he sold several pieces. It was this exhibition in particular that exposed the so-called Glasgow Style to international audiences and secured the reputations of its main protagonists.

That same year he introduced Mackintosh to his employer Walter Blackie, which led to Mackintosh receiving the commission to design Blackie’s home Hill House in Helensburgh, near Glasgow. Morris eventually retired from Blackie’s through ill-health in 1909, and died in 1911 at just 45 years old. His body lies in Dumbarton Cemetery, marked by a gravestone designed by his friend Mackintosh. The inscription reads "Love is more great than we conceive / and death is the keeper of unknown redemptions".