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Since the month of May opens with Mayday and a flurry of international attention to workers, it seems a good month to reflect on William Morris and his work.  On seeing newscasts of workers marching in Munich and elsewhere on Mayday, I thought back to the May 1885 issue of Commonweal,* which demonstrates Morris’s commitment to causes that still animate May Day celebrations around the globe.   The May 1885 issue included two writings by Morris: Part 3 of his serial poem The Pilgrims of Hope and the article “Unattractive Labour.”  In the first, the protagonist and his life partner stand on London streets watching the parade that honors soldiers marching off to war with flags unfurled and music playing.  In Morris’s poem the shops and faces lining the street attract even more attention than the blaring sounds and colorful sights of a parade: “The gaudy shops displayed / The toys of rich men's folly, by blinded labour made” and “Worn feet, grey anxious faces, grey backs bowed 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti's  Bocca Baciata  (Museum of Fine Arts Boston) On Saturday, April 20 a group of 12 dedicated Morrisians traveled to the National Gallery in Washington to view Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design , 1848-1900 on a tour led by Diane Waggoner, Associate Curator in the Department of Photography and in-house curator for this exhibition. The show originated in London last fall at Tate Britain, where it was titled Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde . It will be on view at the National Gallery through May 19. The exhibition was designed as a follow-up to the first major show devoted to the Pre-Raphaelite movement (also held at the Tate) in 1984. The curators of the current exhibition set out to address the substantial scholarship inspired by the earlier show, a goal achieved with great success. The inclusion of decorative arts, photography and work by female artists are just a few of the aspects of the movement brought to light by recent research and p