In 1912 the artist and critic Roger Fry wrote to Bernard Shaw 'I am intending to start a workshop for decorative and applied art'; a year later he founded the Omega Workshops. Fry was an advocate of the couturier Paul Poiret's Ecole Martine, a decorating workshop consisting of a group of untrained teenage girls who produced lively colourful drawings of flowers and vegetation, used as a basis for printed textiles and wallpapers. Although Fry shared Poiret's approach to design, Omega employed fine artists working in Fauvist and Cubist styles, rather than untrained girls. Omega's main areas of activity were furniture and ceramics, however, textiles played a key role from the outset and the launch collection included printed and woven furnishing fabrics, carpets and hand-painted silk scarves. 'Maud' was one of six linens printed at the Maromme Printworks near Rouen in France, using an undivulged special technical process aimed at preserving the 'freedom and spontaneity of the original drawing'.