‘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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View comments

  1. Wonderful post. Thank you for it

    The last paragraph is particularly moving ,and I was kept me on the edge of my seat with the big game hunting stories

    12 chairs!

    There is indeed nothing like the real thing . It informs one on too many levels to take it all in at once, often one needs a life time

    There is always more to be gained from a piece, no matter how long one looks at it ,...and living with one is endless journey of discovery .

    The materiality of things endows them with the capacity to convey the past physically into the present....

    very well said. This is why one must see art live.. imo.

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  2. So glad to find your new post. Very eloquent it is too. I found many echoes of my own collecting obsession, but perhaps a little more erudite and esoteric than me.
    Thank you for sharing again the aesthetic delights of your pieces.

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  3. ps
    the ones that got away sounds very fascinating, can't wait

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  5. I am intrigued by the idea of collecting as autobiography. I like, too, the sense of slowly building a collection. I think if you could afford to buy things often you might appreciate them less. I'm studying Bloomsbury as part of an art history course, and have enjoyed your blog. Thank you.

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  7. I was delighted to find your reference to Phyllis Keyes. I am about to do a blog piece myself on her. She was a lover of Dorothy St. Felix Jackson (1887-1964), a daughter of Sir Thomas Jackson (1841-1915). I am writing a book on Sir Thomas, and am also a relation.

    ReplyDelete
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Welcome to my rather random and unfocused narrative on my (now less) random and more focused collection of ceramics, 20th century decorative arts and pictures.

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Recipe writer, passionate baker, obsessed collector of 20th Century decorative stuffs. Madly sowing and digging in my new garden.
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always interested to hear of any Bloomsbury group, Quentin Bell or Omega Workshops pieces for sale

I am currently researching a catalogue raisonne of the Omega Workshops and would love to hear from anyone with any pieces.

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