The Blue Sheep thumbnail 1
Not on display

The Blue Sheep

Screen
1915 (painting (image-making))
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Duncan Grant, like Vanessa Bell, was a painter who collaborated with Roger Fry to make objects for the home under the banner of the Omega Workshops between 1913 and 1919. They were all influenced by advanced French post-impressionist painting. The Omega Workshops produced ceramics, printed and woven textiles, and painted furniture, but the medium of the folding screen was perhaps best suited to the skills of the artist-designers. The painters treated screens as if they were artists' canvases rather than utilitarian furniture. This screen, for example, depicts a flock of about twenty sheep penned together, bizarrely but expressively rendered in bright blues against an ochre background (Fry admired Grant's 'exquisite use of colour'). Grant has paid no heed to the hinged breaks between the three folding panels - breaks which by necessity must be always visible in order for the screen to stand up - and the joins slice through many of the sheep. Only the suggestion of a wicker pen approximately fits the canvas.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleThe Blue Sheep (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Distemper or Gouache on paper stretched over a wooden frame
Brief description
Folding screen, 'The Blue Sheep', painted by Duncan Grant for the Omega Workshops, Britain, 1915
Physical description
Folding screen, 'The Blue Sheep', painted pine. Gouache or distemper (previously identified as one or the other) on paper mounted on canvas over a wooden frame Painting depicts blue stylised sheep on an orange/red ground.
Dimensions
  • Each individual panel approx. height: 162.5cm (Nicola Costaras)
  • Each panel approx. width: 68.3cm (Nicola Costaras)
  • Each panel approx. depth: 2.6cm (Nicola Costaras)
  • With wedge height: 165cm (Nicola Costaras)
  • 178th height: cmcm
  • 39th width: cm
  • 78.5 depth: cm
of carry frame
Production typeUnique
Object history
Purchased from Paul Roche, 1966. Roche, a poet, cared for Grant in his final years and Grant died at Roche's home in 1978.

This screen was exhibited at 'Art Made Modern: Roger Fry's Vision of Art' from 15th January 1999 to 23rd January 2000 at the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Subject depicted
Summary
Duncan Grant, like Vanessa Bell, was a painter who collaborated with Roger Fry to make objects for the home under the banner of the Omega Workshops between 1913 and 1919. They were all influenced by advanced French post-impressionist painting. The Omega Workshops produced ceramics, printed and woven textiles, and painted furniture, but the medium of the folding screen was perhaps best suited to the skills of the artist-designers. The painters treated screens as if they were artists' canvases rather than utilitarian furniture. This screen, for example, depicts a flock of about twenty sheep penned together, bizarrely but expressively rendered in bright blues against an ochre background (Fry admired Grant's 'exquisite use of colour'). Grant has paid no heed to the hinged breaks between the three folding panels - breaks which by necessity must be always visible in order for the screen to stand up - and the joins slice through many of the sheep. Only the suggestion of a wicker pen approximately fits the canvas.
Bibliographic reference
Green, Christopher (ed.), Art made Modern: Roger Fry's Vision of Art, London : Courtauld Institute of Art, 1999 p.123, no. 146
Collection
Accession number
CIRC.806-1966

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Record createdSeptember 25, 2000
Record URL
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