Jeremy Deller on Andy Warhol and William Morris

Jeremy Deller has long considered Andy Warhol and William Morris two of his greatest influences, so when Modern Art Oxford approached him wih the idea for an exhibition uniting the work of the two icons, he jumped at the chance. "Both artists have been my favourites for some years," the Turner Prize winner, who spent some time in Warhol's Factory in the summer of 1986, explains. "I think they’ve influenced me just by example. They’ve evinced many differences between different genres – they experimented and kept doing things in new ways. That’s very inspiring. When the museum approached me, I immediately thought, ‘Ah, I should’ve thought of that idea.' So it was great to take them up on it."

"Morris and Warhol both experimented and kept doing things in new ways – that’s very inspiring" – Jeremy Deller

The curation process was a "voyage of discovery" for Deller, who went in very open minded and spent hours perusing various collections from across the UK and USA, looking for lesser-known works that demonstrate a connection between the two artists – from their shared interest in new forms of mass production to their zest for collaboration. Here, in celebration of its opening, Deller picks ten of his favourite works from the show and tells us a little more about why they captured his attention.

Above: "Warhol knew what a photo opportunity was. I like that about Warhol; he knew how to ‘get’ a really good photograph. There aren’t many bad photographs of him and this one certainly isn’t one. It's him and one of his most famous works, and I just love the look of it. I like the way, because of the acetate, the work is sort of imprinted on his body. It would make a great T-shirt."

"This is a perfect example of Warhol's graphic works from the 50s – it seems quite casual, but actually he’s an incredible draughtsman. He was already very interested in flowers and colour, which of course he explores later as an artist. Warhol and Morris both like depicting them in fact – so there’s a similarity there. They shared an interest with what you can do with flowers; their colours and shapes."

"This is amazing. We’ve got 4 big drawings in the show from Morris that are original drawings he made for fabric designs. So they’re very big – they’re very beautiful. They’re working drawings; there are notes on them and holes on them where they were pinned up, and so on. It’s interesting that they're not artworks as such, they’re pieces of commercial art."

"Warhol loved film stars, but above all he loved Shirley Temple – he was the same age as her. He wrote to film stars to get their photographs and autographs, and he was lucky enough to get Shirley Temple's when he was 13. This picture we hang next to the Marliyn – it is in a way the precursor for all the portraits he did of women later on."

"This is a rug Warhol made at a time when he was thinking about doing homeware. It's quite big and hangs on William Morris wallpaper in the show. It's similar to the Shirley Temple, that’s why we liked it – the same colours; almost the same positioning of the body and face. I just think it's interesting that when you see this work, you realise that he’s very interested in these female figures. It’s a sincere artwork. It's ironic, post-modern even."

"This is a huge tapestry – 26 feet long – and this is just one of six parts. It’s the climatic scene from the story of the Holy Grail – when the Grail appears, and Sir Galahad is allowed to get close to it before he ascends into heaven. You can sit and look at it for hours because there’s so much detail in it. Morris was interested in medieval mythology and storytelling, and for him this is one of the great stories, so it’s something he wanted to depict."

"This is from Morris' workshop, when he went into business with other people. It's one of twelve, I think, stained glass windows that he made for a private patron. He loved stained glass – he loved churches and always wanted to copy stained glass from them. We light it from the back so its very bright – it looks like it's from a film. It’s a very spectacular work."

"This is one of the many socialist booklets by Morris. He became very committed to the cause; he wrote a lot and gave a lot of talks – about socialism, about justice, about economics – and travelled around the country. I quite like the crudeness of the print – it’s almost like a Warhol, it’s a crude silkscreen. It has his photograph on it because it meant it would sell more. He was like a brand in the way that Warhol was like a brand."

"This is the original drawing of a wallpaper we have in the show, and then we have the printing blocks too, so it's almost like a case study of how you go from the drawing to the finished product. It's complicated; the print looks quite simple because there aren't many colours, but there are actually 33 stages to make that a proper print. We have a whole room that’s covered in this wallpaper, in two different colourways. It's really quite overwhelming in a way, which is what its meant to be. So it's great to have the drawing in the room, hanging on the wallpaper. It's mayhem."

"Andy Warhol's ‘flowers’ is in the same room – it's hung on the wallpaper. It shows how he looked at flowers – how he worked with them, how he changed the colours, the type of the print, the size of the print. It's just one example of how he could take an image and work with it in so many ways. He and Morris are both quite promiscuous in that they will just take something and work with it and change it, and use it in as many different ways and formats as they can."

Love is Enough: William Morris & Andy Warhol is at Modern Art Oxford until March 8, 2015.

Words by Daisy Woodward