Vanessa Bell (1879-1961)

In early 1914 Lady Hamilton, wife of General Sir Ian Hamilton, commissioned the Omega Workshops to decorate and provide furnishings for several rooms in her new London home at 1 Hyde Park Gardens. Besides painted friezes, inlaid furniture, mosaics and stained glass, a special rug for the entrance hall was designed by Bell. This was produced in sufficient quantities for four matching examples to be used in the Hamiltons' house, and further ones to be shown in June - July 1914 at the Omega display at the Allied Artists' Association, Holland Park Hall. More than one preliminary design (e.g. Courtauld Gallery) is extant as well as this bolder and more finished design in oil on paper. With its thrusting black diagonals and sharp segments of blue and yellow, tautly contained within a red framework, this is certainly one of Bell's most exciting contributions to the Omega and is surely the most advanced applied design made at this period in Britain. The inspiration came from her screen (Painted Omega Screen (Tents and Figures), 1913; Victoria and Albert Museum, London) which in turn emerged from her easel painting Summer Camp (private collection, UK), the rug omitting the figurative elements and the sweeping curves of foliage found in the screen. With this and other designs by Bell and Grant in mind, it is difficult to justify Wyndham Lewis's claim in October 1913 that the Omega style was a debilitating exercise in mid-Victorian prettiness.
R.S.