The Omega Workshops and the modern artistic interior on the British stage, 1914–1918, with special reference to The Wynmartens (1914)

Abstract

This essay examines a modern artistic interior created by The Omega Workshops Ltd. (1913–19), an artist-led coterie that focused on a particular type of “modern” artistic interior decoration, and the design of the individual items necessary to it, for the little-known play The Wynmartens, written by Richard Henry Powell (1884–1915) and opened on the British stage in May 1914. Newly “discovered” photographs are analyzed to reveal how The Omega Workshops helped stage an interior which brought the first “advanced” and Post-Impressionist-inspired interior to British theatergoers. The Omega Workshops’ motivations for diversifying and taking up such a project are considered, as is the capacity of the dramatic stage as a potentially lucrative platform for modern artists and interior designers. It concludes by considering the possible reasons for the disappearance of this project from histories of The Omega Workshops.