Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of the Omega Workshops 1913-19

With the opening of the Omega Workshops in 1913 as a 'laboratory' of radical design ideas, Roger Fry signalled a break with mainstream Edwardian culture and aesthetics. Inspired by contemporary ary in Europe, the Workshops created a range of objects for home, from rugs and linens to ceramics, furniture and clothing - all boldly coloured and patterned with dynamic abstract designs. Fry insisted that the Omega designs were produced anonymously, bearing only the Greek letter Ω in a square. For five brief years, 33 Fitzroy Square was the place to buy a 'Fauve' shawl, a 'post-impressionist' chair or a Cubist-inspired rug from an artists' collective that included Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Percy Wyndham Lewis, Frederick Etchells, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Winifred Gill - the remarkable young woman who ran the Workshops from the start of the First World War until 1916.