ARTIST CARPETS & RUGS: VANESSA BELL
Image: Design for Omega Rug 1914, oil on paper, Vanessa Bell
By Deborah Nash
The painter Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) elder sister of Virginia Woolf, was regarded as the matriarch of the Bloomsbury Group. She was also co-director of the Omega Workshops Ltd with Roger Fry and Duncan Grant.
Her rug for Lady Hamilton’s flat at 1 Hyde Park Gardens in 1914 is about as far removed as one can imagine from the Chintz fabrics the artist liked to use in the cushions and curtains at Charleston farmhouse in Sussex, where she lived, on and off, from 1916 to her death in 1961.
Bell must have been very familiar with Lady Hamilton’s neighbourhood, having grown up at 22 Hyde Park Gate; perhaps the wrought iron railings in that part of London influenced her designs. The patron was wife to General Sir Ian Hamilton and a supporter of the Omega Workshops, commissioning decorations and furnishings for her new London home, including a special rug for the entrance hall. Bell set to work, producing several drawings that resulted in the production of four or five matching rugs for the house.
Image: Preliminary design for Lady Hamilton’s Rug 1914, Vanessa Bell
In its triptych structure of three dark red and black-edged panels framing irregular upright and diagonal black bars shadowed by pale blues and yellows the rug declares its dynamism. The small square in the bottom corner may contain the Greek letter Omega, with which the Omega Workshop artists signed their work. This was a Roger Fry stipulation that all pieces were anonymous to ensure a congenial atmosphere; friendship was an important feature of both Bloomsbury and Omega. At the time, Bell was also engaged in painting screens and it’s thought that her 1913 four-panelled room divider Bathers in a Landscape contributed to the composition of the rug, while its abstraction displays the influence of the cubists and in its energy, the vorticists.
Lady Hamilton’s rug (L 182cm x W 91.5 cm) was woven by Wilton Royal Carpet Factory and described as a ‘jewel’ when shown alongside a sketch in the 2009 exhibition at the Courtauld Institute Beyond Bloomsbury. Today, it forms part of the V&A collection.
Image: Hooked Woollen pile on jute warp and weft, 1914, Vanessa Bell. Image courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London
In 1925, painter Paul Nash claimed that modernist aesthetics entered British textiles via the Omega Workshops, but for Bell the gaiety and freshness of the décor of a home equated to personal freedom, a belief that played out in her Charleston retreat.
SAVE THE DATE: Upcoming Selvedge online talk, Rugs, Wednesday 12 April 2023 at 18:00 BST (British Summer Time).
By Deborah Nash
The painter Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) elder sister of Virginia Woolf, was regarded as the matriarch of the Bloomsbury Group. She was also co-director of the Omega Workshops Ltd with Roger Fry and Duncan Grant.
Her rug for Lady Hamilton’s flat at 1 Hyde Park Gardens in 1914 is about as far removed as one can imagine from the Chintz fabrics the artist liked to use in the cushions and curtains at Charleston farmhouse in Sussex, where she lived, on and off, from 1916 to her death in 1961.
Bell must have been very familiar with Lady Hamilton’s neighbourhood, having grown up at 22 Hyde Park Gate; perhaps the wrought iron railings in that part of London influenced her designs. The patron was wife to General Sir Ian Hamilton and a supporter of the Omega Workshops, commissioning decorations and furnishings for her new London home, including a special rug for the entrance hall. Bell set to work, producing several drawings that resulted in the production of four or five matching rugs for the house.
Image: Preliminary design for Lady Hamilton’s Rug 1914, Vanessa Bell
In its triptych structure of three dark red and black-edged panels framing irregular upright and diagonal black bars shadowed by pale blues and yellows the rug declares its dynamism. The small square in the bottom corner may contain the Greek letter Omega, with which the Omega Workshop artists signed their work. This was a Roger Fry stipulation that all pieces were anonymous to ensure a congenial atmosphere; friendship was an important feature of both Bloomsbury and Omega. At the time, Bell was also engaged in painting screens and it’s thought that her 1913 four-panelled room divider Bathers in a Landscape contributed to the composition of the rug, while its abstraction displays the influence of the cubists and in its energy, the vorticists.
Lady Hamilton’s rug (L 182cm x W 91.5 cm) was woven by Wilton Royal Carpet Factory and described as a ‘jewel’ when shown alongside a sketch in the 2009 exhibition at the Courtauld Institute Beyond Bloomsbury. Today, it forms part of the V&A collection.
Image: Hooked Woollen pile on jute warp and weft, 1914, Vanessa Bell. Image courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum, London
In 1925, painter Paul Nash claimed that modernist aesthetics entered British textiles via the Omega Workshops, but for Bell the gaiety and freshness of the décor of a home equated to personal freedom, a belief that played out in her Charleston retreat.
SAVE THE DATE: Upcoming Selvedge online talk, Rugs, Wednesday 12 April 2023 at 18:00 BST (British Summer Time).