Preliminary design for Lady Ian Hamilton's rug

Maker

(artist)
1879-1961

Title

Date of Production

1914

Medium

bodycolour on wove graph paper; the left edge has been folded under

Dimensions

Height: 41.9 cm
Width: 74.6 cm

Accession Number

D.1958.PD.88

Mode of Acquisition

Pamela Diamand, gift, 1958

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

One of the Omega Workshops’ original shareholders, Lady Hamilton offered Fry’s artists their only real opportunity for a harmonised domestic decoration project in her home at 1 Hyde Park Gardens in Bayswater. Four or five rugs were eventually woven, but with a less densely packed and more restrained colour scheme than this preliminary design. This is one of Bell’s five known designs for the rug. It shows an intermediary stage of the design process, with the pattern of black lines fully worked out but the coloured areas not yet finalised. The squared paper provided a framework for working out the abstract design, rather than being of practical use for the rug-maker.

Provenance

acquired from the artist by Roger Fry (1866-1934); by descent to his daughter, Pamela Diamand; Pamela Diamand Gift 1958

Exhibition History

Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 25/05/2024-06/10/2024

Women in Abstraction, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 05/05/2021-23/08/2021

Modern Couples, Centre Pompidou-Metz, France, 26/04/2018-20/08/2018; Barbican Art Gallery, London, 10/10/2018-27/01/2019 ...More

Beyond Bloomsbury - Designs of the Omega Workshops 1913-19, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 18/06/2009-20/09/2009

Blast to Freeze, Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, Germany, 14/09/2002-05/01/2003

The Art of Bloomsbury, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, USA, 20/05/2000-02/09/2000

The Art of Bloomsbury, Huntington Museum and Art Gallery, Los Angeles, San Marino USA, 04/03/2000-30/04/2000

The Art of Bloomsbury, Tate Gallery, London, 30/10/1999-30/01/2000

Roger Fry and the Omega Workshops, The Courtauld Gallery (Prints and Drawings Study Room), 01/08/1990-02/12/1990

The Omega Workshops 1913 to 1919, Crafts Council Gallery, London, 18/01/1984-18/03/1984 ...Less

Literature

Women in Abstraction, Centre-Pompidou, Paris 5 May - 23 Aug. 2021 and Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, 2 Oct. 2021 - 27 Feb. 2022

Beyond Bloomsbury - Designs of the Omega Workshops 1913-19, Courtauld Gallery, London, 2009
cat. no. 31

Blast to Freeze, Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, Germany, 2002-03 ...More

The Art of Bloomsbury, Tate Gallery, London, 1999-2000

The Omega Workshops 1913 to 1919, Crafts Council Gallery, London, 1984
cat. no. D12 ...Less

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto: lower left, graphite: "254", "24 / 10 / 240 / 14 / [sum line] 254", "200"; lower right, graphite: "100". Verso: lower left edge, graphite: “CC Rot. No 2”.

Collector's mark: none.

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