Design for an embroidered cushion or seat cover

Maker

(artist)
1885-1978

Title

Date of Production

1913

Medium

graphite and bodycolour on wove paper; large losses along the lower edge; multiple pinholes at upper corners (both lower corners lost)

Dimensions

Height: 48 cm
Width: 60.8 cm

Accession Number

D.1958.PD.96

Mode of Acquisition

Pamela Diamand, gift, 1958

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

Roger Fry encouraged the artists of the Omega Workshops to modernise traditional interior furnishings by using new decorative designs and injecting them with vivid colours. Here, Duncan Grant employs the complementary colours blue and orange to depict a giraffe curling back on itself, surrounded by a pattern of red palm-tree fronds. An inscription at the top left of the sheet asks that the blue match ‘the cat’, a reference to another design by Grant depicting a cat on a cabbage.

Provenance

Roger Fry (1866-1934); by descent to his daughter Pamela Diamand; Pamela Diamand Gift 1958

Exhibition History

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

Special Display - Bloomsbury Art & Design, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 18/02/2017-20/09/2017

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

Duncan Grant in Twickenham, Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham, England, 06/12/2003-14/02/2004

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

Duncan Grant, designer, Brighton Art Gallery and Museum, Brighton, England, 11/03/1980-13/04/1980

Duncan Grant, designer, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, England, 01/02/1980-29/02/1980 ...Less

Literature

Beyond Bloomsbury - Designs of the Omega Workshops 1913-19, Courtauld Gallery, London, 2009
cat. no. 72
ill. on p. 149

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto: upper left edge, graphite: “The blue to be the same as the cat. / The background round outside / this circle to be the same as the /other.”

Collector's mark: none.

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