Lamp stand painted with geometric decoration, made by the Omega Workshops, English, 1913-1919.

Wooden lamp stand, designed for an electric light. The stand is in two parts - a turned base, with a turned and carved stand on top of it. A hollow down the centre of the stand would have held the electric cord. There is a metal light-bulb fitting at the top of the stand. The entire surface of the stand is hand-painted with geometric decoration, in red, ochre blue, green and burgundy.

The V&A acquired a group of four painted Omega Workshop lampstands in 1934, from Margaret Bulley (MISC.2:15, 16, 17, 18-1934). These lampstands entered the collection with silk, hemispherical lampshades. It is likely that this stand would originally have had a similar shade.

The Omega Workshops were founded by Roger Fry (1866–1934) in 1913 in order to promote appreciation of mass, colour and form, as seen in Post-Impressionist painting. Fry felt that decorative objects could be used to train the eye to appreciate these characteristics.

The Omega Workshops were based in Bloomsbury. Their premises at Fitzroy Square included both public showrooms and studios. Under the umbrella of the Omega Workshops, numerous artists produced a wide range of objects for the home, including painted furniture and furnishing textiles. Affiliates of the Workshop were salaried but were expected to spend only 3 days a week in the group studio and to devote the rest of their time to fine art projects. A number of leading British modernists produced work for the Omega Workshops, including Vanessa Bell (1879–1961), Duncan Grant (1885–1978) and Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957). All of the Workshops' output was anonymous, with artists sometimes using the omega symbol as a signature.

Omega workshops lamps sold from £1 and were composed hand-painted card or silk shades and wooden stands either upcycled or made for the workshops. Although we cannot identify the person who painted and made this one, we do know some of the artists who were tasked with their decoration. The British designers and artists Winifred Gill (1891–1981), Nina Hamnett (1890–1956) and Jessie Etchells (1892–1933) along with other women of the workshops have been identified as some of the painters of both stands and shades.
While the British writer and painter Wyndham Lewis and the Norwegian painter, designer and illustrator Roald Kristian (1893–date unknown) favoured human and animal subjects on the shades they decorated, Hubert Waley, a British artist who started working part-time for the Omega in 1915, preferred abstract patterns and multicoloured zigzags.

This lamp stand, one of six painted lamp stands in the V&A's collection, displays the Omega Workshops’ preoccupation with form and colour. It also shows an interest in the geometric shapes and stylised decoration found in the painted vernacular tradition.

The Omega Workshops were founded by the writer and critic Roger Fry, in 1913. They were based in London at 33 Fitzroy Square. Through the Workshops, Fry intended to promote appreciation of mass, colour and form, as seen in Post-Impressionist painting. He believed that the eye could be trained in these qualities through their use on everyday objects. The painted decoration on this lampstand, with its obvious interest in form and colour, is typical of the Omega Workshops' wider practice.

The six lampstands were a bequest of Margaret Bulley, a friend of Vanessa Bell and an art historian, collector and curator at the Whitworth Museum. She owned a large number of Omega Workshops items such as lamps, fabrics and ceramics which are now in the V&A collection.

W.19-2012