‘So the Omega
Workshops closed down. The shades of the Post-Impressionists have gone to join
the other shades; no trace of them is now to be seen in Fitzroy Square. The giant ladies have been dismounted
from the doorway and the rooms have other occupants. But some of the things he
made still remain – a painted table; a witty chair; a dinner service; a bowl or
two of that turquoise blue that the man from the British Museum so much admired. And if by chance one
of those broad deep plates is broken, or an accident befalls a blue dish, all
the shops in London may be searched in vain for its
fellow.’ Thus Virginia Woolf described the demise of the Omega Workshops in her
1940 biography of Roger Fry.
Painter and
art critic Roger Fry, best known for introducing a profoundly sceptical British
public to the work of the Post-Impressionists, formed the Omega Workshops in 1913, a hundred years ago this summer. With
Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant as his co-directors, he aspired to produce
decorative arts in the new, vital spirit of Post-Impressionism, while paying
the participating artists a regular wage. Despite the rich creativity of those
artists – Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska,
Frederick and Jessie Etchells, Nina Hamnett, Winifred Gill, Edward Wolfe,
Wyndham Lewis and Dolores Courtney among them – the Workshops was not a
commercial success and closed in 1919, just six years after it was founded.
My approach to
the Omega aesthetic is that of a passionate collector and is very different to
that of an academic or design historian. My personal reaction to any work of
art is primarily sensual and intuitive. I am interested in the notion of abstract
ideas, but these must play second fiddle to my response to the physical
presence of an object. The pieces in my collection were made to be lived with,
to be used and enjoyed, and I continue to use many of them on a daily basis
(much to the horror of many curators). Welcome, then, to my secret world, one
usually hidden behind the front door and glimpsed only by friends and family, a
personal sphere replete with interest, humour, and passion even to the point of obsession.
As an
Australian, living in a small seaside town in central New South Wales, my own delight in the Omega Workshops
and particularly its ceramics was sparked, as is often the case, by a chance
comment, a moment of synchronicity. Frances Spalding’s biography of Vanessa
Bell hit the antipodean shores around 1984. Those were the days of independent
bookshops whose proprietors took an interest in their customers and often
recommended suitable titles. My local bookseller knew that I collected early
twentieth-century ceramics and alerted me to the remarkable examples pictured
in Spalding’s inspired biography, and in Isabelle Anscombe’s beautifully
illustrated Omega and After (Thames
and Hudson, 1981). This sparked not
only my interest in the ceramics of the Omega Workshops, but a fascination with
the decorative arts of the Bloomsbury group in general. I was smitten with
those extraordinary decorative domestic interiors and their painted pots,
screens, lamps, chairs and rugs. It was never enough for this collector simply
to read about these items; I wanted to own them too.
The first time
I saw pieces from Omega was not, as one would imagine, in a British museum or
gallery, but at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Their impressive collection
included an Omega lily pond table and decorated chairs (on permanent display),
a dressing gown in Omega fabric, as well as ceramics (a very rare and desirable
black glazed Omega Workshops vase) and a significant collection of art from
both the Bloomsbury and Camden Town Group painters.
Standing in front of the lily pond table and chairs, I was galvanized by the
novel use of vivid colour, and profoundly and intensely moved in a way I had
never experienced before.
I wasn't able
to acquire any Omega pieces for my collection until 2002 - many years into my
Omega obsession. I had seen some ceramics, lamps, boxes, furniture and fabric
while living in London between 1989 and 1992, at the Bloomsbury Workshop (a
favourite haunt), the V&A and the Courtauld Gallery, but due to the sad
state of my finances (the Australian dollar was like monopoly money back then)
I was unable to afford to buy anything. I wasn’t in London for either the Craft Council Omega
Workshops exhibition in 1984 or the Anthony d’Offay Omega show in 1984.
Luckily, I returned to a full-time job in London in 2001 with my finances in a better
state.
Affordable
pieces from the Omega Workshops rarely hit the open market, but with the
careful scrutiny of auction catalogues, lots of internet searching and the
assistance of various contacts and dealers, I was thrilled to buy my first
piece of Omega pottery, a white tin-glazed dinner plate, in 2002.
Soon after,
three Omega plates came up in one lot at a London saleroom. I had to beg and borrow to
acquire the funds. To recover the cost I sold one of the plates to an American
collector (whom I have, without success, been nagging ever since to sell it
back to me). In 2005 I was lucky enough to purchase a two-handled turquoise
bowl from an auction room in Bath. This extremely large hand-built bowl
(21 inches in diameter) never fails to give me
goose bumps when handled. Pottery has always been to focus of my collecting;
it’s extremely likeable, usable and is always more affordable than furniture or
art.
From its
inception, the Omega Workshops’ diverse stock included ceramics. Initially
these were commercial, utilitarian wares that were over-painted by the artists.
Fry learnt the rudiments of hand-building, throwing and glazing pots from an
elderly potter in Surrey, making simple shapes with simple
glazes. Initially he preferred a white tin glaze (good as a background for
simple two-colour decorations), and later he developed various plain colour
glazes for plates, vases and bowls including turquoise, dark blue and black.
According to
Virginia Woolf, ‘when he [Roger Fry] had found out how things were made there
was the excitement of trying to make them himself. It seemed a natural division
of labour – while his brain spun theories, his hands busied themselves with
solid objects. He went down to Poole and took lessons in potting.’ In 1914
(through Winifred Gill, who worked at the Omega), Fry was introduced to the
firm of Carter and Co, who produced commercial pottery in Poole, Dorset. At Carters, with its superior
equipment and technical know how, Fry’s throwing skills improved, his touch
become surer and he developed more complex shapes. Most of the dinner and side
plates in my collection were produced at Carters. Some of these are hand-thrown
by Fry and others appear to be made with the use of a jig and mould (fashioned
from one of Fry’s handmade prototypes).
My collection
seems to accumulate experiences in the same way that I do. The discovery or
even the first sight of a particularly sought-after piece is an important
moment in the life of every collector and can become a point for reference in
its own right. I often refer to events as Before or After a special
acquisition. The provenance, life history or narrative of a piece is very
important to me.
In London in
1989, I went to an Applied Arts from 1880
sale at Sotheby’s that included two different lots of Omega chairs, one yellow,
one grey, and both far beyond my means. The viewing of this sale was another
one of those life-changing moments and I still remember my heart skipping a
beat, and my knees going weak; it was extraordinary to be able to see and touch
these rarities. I still have the catalogue with my markings on the relevant
pages; 24 years later I am lucky enough to have both of these chairs in my
collection.
The
hand-decorated ‘Egyptian’ dining-room chairs (one of which I had seen at
Sothebys) were probably painted by Grant or Etchells. They were designed by
Roger Fry in 1913 and made by the Dryad Company of Leicestershire. Most of the
Omega dining chairs made to this or similar designs were painted red to
simulate Chinese lacquer. In Fry's words, ‘in designing for furniture we have
considered comfort and practical needs first’. I spotted the whole set of four
chairs again while trawling auction catalogues one evening in March 2007 and
consequently sat up very late one night a few weeks later, heart pounding, to
make a successful phone bid to a saleroom in Toronto. I bought them relatively
cheaply as they were rather shabby. After a clean and some light restoration by
a conservator, they are splendid, used daily, and the first items I would grab
if the house was on fire. The previous owner, a descendant of Clive Bell,
believes that these chairs once belonged to Dame Edith Sitwell. Alvaro Guevara,
a young Chilean artist who exhibited at the Omega Workshops in 1916, painted
Sitwell seated on a similar chair around 1917 (Tate).
See below and
a page from the illustrated Omega Workshops Catalogue 1914 showing a similar
chair priced at £2 10s.
Grey chairs,
similar to the ones offered at Sothebys appeared in my life when an entire set
of eight grey chairs designed by Fry around 1914 and illustrated in Judith
Collins’ The Omega Workshops (University of Chicago Press, 1984) came up for
sale in New York. As luck would have it, I was in New York the week before, and was given a
private viewing. This was a auction of remarkable (mostly American) twentieth-century
decorative arts, nearly all in beautiful condition. At the far end was this set
of Omega chairs, looking rather unloved, and needing re-caning and lots of TLC.
To my good fortune, most American buyers like their decorative arts in pristine
condition, and they remained unsold. I was cheeky enough to leave a rather
insubstantial offer and it was accepted. I now had twelve Omega dining-room
chairs in my collection – excessive, I know, but totally thrilling. The process
of cleaning and re-caning these chairs is ongoing and they are used regularly.
I have a policy that every piece in my collection is there to be used, and even
though I don’t eat food off the Omega plates, I have used them as props in food
photo shoots.
Even though
the best known products of the Omega Workshops are its pottery, textiles,
furniture and rugs, it sold a remarkable range of other objects from its
premises at 33
Fitzroy Square. Candlesticks, lamps and lamp shades, painted trays,
artificial flowers, beads, children’s toys, bags, hats, clothing and fans were
all popular, too. Duncan Grant painted several fans for Omega in 1913-14; one
example in the V&A is on a similar silk and ivory support as the one below
from my collection (acquired in March 2012).
Adding pieces
to my Omega Workshops collection is an essentially intermittent activity.
Pieces enter the collection over an extended period and I feel this is part of
its integrity and sincerity. Most acquisitions take place when ‘the heavens are
looking down on me’ making sure both the availability of funds and objects are
in alignment. The heavens were definitely on my side when in 2005 I bought an
Omega wooden lamp base in a German flea-market for 50 Euros. Whether it is the
story of the object itself, or the tale of how I was able to acquire it, the
objects I own add up to my unwritten diary. Collections are material
autobiography, written as we go along and left behind as souvenirs of our life.
Collecting
also furnishes me with a more spacious view of humanity, both past and present.
The character of the other collectors, dealers, curators and various
enthusiasts one meets when searching for finds is both various and fascinating.
Susan M. Pearce in her book, On Collecting:
An Investigation Into Collecting In The European Tradition (Routledge,
1999) suggests that hunting is, to collectors, a helpful analogy, promoting
ideas of cunning, stealth, patience, competition and ultimate success, with the
acquisition carried home in triumph.
The
materiality of things endows them with the capacity to convey the past
physically into the present. An object that was once displayed at the Omega
showroom retains the reality of that historical connection, even though it may
also be the subject of many fresh interpretations. The object is the ‘real
thing’ and has, for a collector like me, authenticity and real magic. That
moment of discovery, when we find something we love, is at the heart of the
collecting process. There is also a long piece to be written about the ones
that got away.
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