Rug Design of Vanessa Bell

Illustration: Vanessa Bell. Rug design for the Omega Workshops, 1914.

The English fine art painter Vanessa Bell is probably best known today, less for her fine art work than she is for her connections with the Bloomsbury Group, her sister Virginia Woolf and her sometimes complex personal life. If her fine art work has had to take a secondary role to that of her life, how much further down would seem to be her textile work, much of which was produced for Roger Fry's Omega Workshops, just before and during the First World War.

Although Bell's textile design work has a certain standing within the history of the Omega Workshops, less seems to be known of her rug design work also produced for the Workshops. The example shown here, which she produced in 1914, is an excellent example of how far the limits of decorative design in Britain had expanded during the first few years of the twentieth century. Admittedly, the Omega Workshops could never be considered part of the mainstream British interiors market as perhaps Morris & Co and Heals had, however, much of the work marketed by Roger Fry did find an enthusiastic reception, particularly from the young and wealthy. So much so that the Omega Workshops sold distinctive decorative work ranging across a number of craft disciplines including furniture, textiles, ceramics and jewellery.

It is important to remember perhaps that the majority of designers working for the Omega Workshops, many admittedly on a casual basis, were often fine art trained and so this has to be taken into consideration when dealing with the inspired output of the Workshops. The sometimes cautious and certainly commercially inspired designer is perhaps not always as creatively motivated as they could be. To be fair, this has much to do with the inbuilt and long-standing mentality of the market and the industry that fuels it. Very few risks are ever taken and those that are tend to be calculated ones. The creatively novel and inspired are often given a wide birth and tried and tested tend to be the more usual maxims of business.

Illustration: Vanessa Bell wearing one of her own designs, 1915.

That Roger Fry circumvented the usual avenues of the market and succeeded shows much had changed in British attitudes, tastes and ambitions. Admittedly, Fry did rely to a certain extent on the patronage of his own class and his network of family and friends. However, it would be churlish to believe that this was the limit of the appeal of the Omega Workshops. Many critics and public alike were well aware that times were changing and that the nineteenth century, its beliefs, traditions and standards was being left ever further behind. There was a constant effort within the first few years of the twentieth century to produce a new vision for a new century. Many felt that that vision had been summed up by Art Nouveau. However, as the movement had seemed to have run its course before the new century had even opened, Art Nouveau was not essentially part of the new decorative order. Many felt that a new decorative movement should be inspired in some form at least by the innovations and excitement that had been created within the art world.

While the Omega Workshops may not have revolutionised British design overnight, Roger Fry's deliberate and considered use of young fine art inspired and trained individuals, helped to expand the potential horizons of the decorative arts. Vanessa Bell's striking rug design was part of Fry's conscious effort to change and react to the new century, bringing fine art sensibilities within the scope of the British public.

Bells design work is uncompromising and distinctive. There are no obvious links or continuations with the past and the completed rug is a stand-alone composition that has no interest or predilection to fit in with any form of conventionalised interior decor. Any individual who was to purchase a Vanessa Bell rug was making a conscious decision to buy into an untried and untested world. That the majority of the Omega Workshops clientele were young, uncomplicated and entranced with the new and the novel, perhaps says much about the prospects and eventual definition of the future of the twentieth century.

Further reading links:
Vanessa Bell
The Art of Bloomsbury: Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, and Duncan Grant
Still Life with Flowers Art Poster Print by Vanessa Bell, 11x14
Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell: A Very Close Conspiracy
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf Art Poster Print by Vanessa Bell, 24x33
Selected Letters of Vanessa Bell
Vanessa and Virginia
Flowers And Studio: Vanessa Bell. 7.45 inches by 11.12 inches. Art Poster Print.
The Sisters' Arts: The Writing and Painting of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell
The Hidden Houses of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell
Cotton, Lavender, and Quilt Art Poster Print by Vanessa Bell, 11x14
Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden

Morris & Co and the Omega Workshops

Illustration: John Henry Dearle. Embroidered portiere, 1910.

By 1910, though beautiful, this embroidered hanging produced by John Henry Dearle for the company of Morris & Co, had become largely irrelevant as a design style. Much of this type of work was rapidly becoming obsolete and was often confined to the sentimental decor of the nursery.

By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, much of the output of Morris & Co was either being by-passed by the general public with their short term fascination with the French and Belgian inspired Art Nouveau movement, or was struggling to come to terms with the more formidable challenge posed by the ideas and philosophies of Modernism in both the art and design worlds. A movement that was to come to dominate the differing decorative and artistic styles of the twentieth century.

William Morris, in many respects the head of the Arts & Crafts movement in Britain, had died in 1896, making John Henry Dearle effectively the head of Morris & Co. The company did survive Morris' death as well as Dearle's, and continued until 1940. However, it was never to regain the popularity that it had achieved under Morris. Admittedly, this had much to do with the company being so closely associated with their founder, so that even if the company had been willing to attempt to introduce a new generation of designer into its workshops, it would have been a hard struggle to counteract the dominating philosophy and character that the shadow of Morris placed over the company, right up to its demise.

The new generation of British artists and designers that could have breathed new life into Morris & Co, but ultimately challenged and then swept away the often cosy, but fast fading world of the nineteenth century, could probably be summed up by a reference to the Omega Workshops, under Roger Fry. The workshops were set up a mere three years after the embroidered panel was produced by Dearle. They had an entirely different outlook to Morris & Co. They were often considered to be haphazard and eclectic in style and merchandise, but had a charm and youthful enthusiasm and a passion for the untried and the untested, with Fry always having an eye on the new and the novel.

Fry and his group of young artists and designers were well aware that this was no longer the nineteenth century, and while their work had its roots in that century, they were not prepared to pay uncritical homage to it, or even to look wistfully back as Morris & Co seemed to be intent on doing. The new century had new ideas and new challenges, some of which were dead ends and some never materialised. However, the enthusiasm of looking forward was intoxicating, and although many of the buying public were still hesitant about the new century and its gifts, a significant minority were prepared to indulge the novelty and excitement of the new ideas in both art and design. As that minority got larger, those like the Omega Workshops that were supplying those new fresh approaches, flourished.

Perhaps Dearle's large embroidered piece produced in the grand nineteenth century tradition of the British Arts & Crafts style, can be seen as one last defiant stand against both the new century and its burgeoning new ideas, that Dearle and Morris & Co often felt at odds with. Perhaps more importantly it also highlights the problems the company had in connecting, or finding common ground, not only with the new generation of talented artists and designers, but more importantly, the younger generation of consumers who largely felt little or no affinity with Morris or his company.

Illustration: Vanessa Bell. Maud, 1913.

Further reading links: 

The Omega Workshops

Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of The Omega Workshops

Omega Workshops, 1913-19

The Omega Workshops: Alliance and enmity in English art, 1911-1920 : Anthony d'Offay Gallery

Omega Cuts: Woodcuts and Linocuts by Artists Associated with the Omega Workshops and the Hogarth Press

A Roger Fry Reader

Roger Fry: A Biography

Art and the Market: Roger Fry on Commerce in Art, Selected Writings, Edited with an Interpretation

Roger Fry: Art and Life

John Henry Dearle

Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell

Modernist Women and Visual Cultures: Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Photography, and Cinema

Vanessa Bell

Bloomsbury Portraits: Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Their Circle

The Letters of Vanessa Bell