Linda Parry, who has died aged 78 of breast cancer and pneumonia, was a museum curator known internationally as the leading expert on the textiles of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. Anyone and everyone with an interest in those subjects – museums, collectors, dealers and the wider public – came to Linda for help and advice, which she shared with generosity. Although her expertise ranged much wider than Morris and his circle, she devoted much of her 34-year curatorial career at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and her years of retirement, to researching, publishing and curating exhibitions on those subjects.
Linda established her reputation with two important books: William Morris Textiles (1983) and Textiles of the Arts and Crafts Movement (1988), both still in print. While others had published on Morris (less so on related textiles), the depth and rigour of her archival research into the histories of designers and manufacturing firms was combined with her deep knowledge of how textiles are designed and made. To these she added a discerning eye for material, texture and colour, a belief that her protagonists had, in her words, “elevated [textiles] to a higher art form”, and deep empathy with Morris’s dedication to his craft, his integrity and also his politics.
Linda’s own needlework skills provided her with technical understanding that distinguished her from most art history-trained academics in the field and was honed by years of detailed study of objects in the V&A’s collection.
Her 1996 V&A exhibition celebrating the centenary of Morris’s death cemented Linda’s leadership of her field. Covering the full range of Morris’s work as artist and designer in over 500 exhibits, this blockbuster exhibition was the largest ever devoted to Morris and, by a considerable margin, the most popular V&A exhibition for nearly half a century.
The catalogue, which she edited and to which she contributed essays and catalogue entries, also reflected Linda’s collaborative nature. Exhibition making, like day-to-day curating in a national museum, is never a solitary activity and relies, as she knew well, on working closely with colleagues with differing fields of expertise. After the 1996 exhibition, there was barely a single Morris or Arts and Crafts exhibition anywhere in the world that Linda was not invited to curate or contribute to, nor a single historic property associated with the Morris family that did not count Linda as a trustee, adviser or patron.
She was born in Bromborough, on the Wirral. Her parents, Marion (nee Barlow), a tax officer, and Albert Roberts, an engineer, separated in 1950. As a child, Linda’s interest in art and textiles was fuelled by visiting Liverpool’s outstanding museums and art galleries with her father and older sister, Vivien, by an inspiring teacher at Wallasey technical high school, and by a much-loved holiday job in the fabric department of the Lewis’s department store in Liverpool, as well as by her love of practical stitching. A foundation course in art at Wallasey Art School (1963-65), where she met her lifelong partner, Don Parry, was followed by the study of textile design at Liverpool College of Art (1965-68).
In 1968 Linda moved to London to take a postgraduate course at Central School of Art and Design, where her interest in pre-Raphaelite painting led her to write for the first time on the tapestries of Morris and the artist Edward Burne-Jones.
Her first museum jobs were at Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery (1969-71), renowned for its Victorian collections, for whom she published her first essay, on tapestry techniques. By then she already aspired to work at the V&A’s textile and dress department, one of the largest textile collections in the world. In 1971 she was hired as an entry level curatorial assistant and, over the course of 34 years, was promoted through every position in that department, eventually assuming greater management responsibility as the deputy, then chief curator. In 2001 she became (at the same level of seniority) the deputy keeper of the enlarged department of furniture, textiles and fashion, and remained in the post until her retirement in 2005.
While known outside the V&A as scholar and expert, within the museum Linda was a consummate curator, devoted to the quotidian tasks of caring for the collection and galleries, answering professional and public enquiries, and skilfully managing and nurturing younger colleagues. Her working style – infused with a noticeably dry sense of humour – was always collaborative, unfailingly generous and pleasingly direct. Linda studiously avoided workplace dramas and time-wasting.
Her deeply felt sense of public service manifested itself not only in her day job but in her enthusiastic contribution to a large number of organisations connected to the life and work of Morris, his family and circle. Among them, she was a committed honorary curator (1992-2005), on behalf of the Society of Antiquaries (of which she was a fellow), of Kelmscott Manor, the Morris family’s Oxfordshire home, during a crucial period in bringing it back to public view. She also served as a trustee of Red House in Bexleyheath (another Morris family house), and of the Hammersmith home of Morris’s dear friend Emery Walker, who taught Morris about book design and printing. She was president of the William Morris Society (2000-05) and a steadfast adviser over many years to staff at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. Linda was appointed MBE for services to art in 2006.
She is survived by Don, whom she married in 1972, and her sisters Vivien and Jody.
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