The six framed art works by Walter Crane grace a corridor on the ground floor of St. Grimbald’s Court.
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush appeared in the 1877 “Baby’s Opera”, a book of English nursery songs planned with Edmund Evans.
About the artist:
As a teenager he was apprenticed to the wood engraver W.J. Linton in London from 1859 to 1862 where he studied old Italian masters and contemporary work by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Millais. An important development for Crane came from his studies of Japanese colour prints and the methods of which he used in a series of toy books (1869-75)
He was initially influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite painting movement (founded in 1848 by a group of English painters, poets and critics. The group’s intention was to reform art by rejecting what it considered the “mechanistic” approach adopted by artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo.) before collaborating with and being a disciple of William Morris, an author and social activist, as part of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
In addition to his endeavors in art, Walter Crane devoted a lot of his time and writing to promote socialism.
High quality images came from Paul Webb’s blog. It can be found here.