Swimmers, stylised waves, fountains, pools and fish occur throughout Grant’s contributions to the Omega Workshops, all suggestive of freedom and movement. They run from a swimmer on a wooden pencil box to the spectacular lily-pond table tops and screens of swirling colour poured onto a dark, flat surface, the goldfish moving around the lily-pads. A single goldfish occupies the centre of this embroidered fire screen and its accompanying design. The screen seems to have been commissioned by Maynard Keynes and was, until recently, in the collection of his nephew, the late Stephen Keynes. Although dated 1916 (late inscription), it probably belongs to a year or two earlier and a piece of collaged newspaper shows the date of XXXXXX. It was not immediately transferred to canvas but was carried out in silk by Dr Marie Moralt who came to know Grant and Bell in early 1919 when she cured their ailing baby daughter, Angelica. Dr Moralt, whose portrait was painted by both artists, also worked a cross-stitch chair back and seat, also by Grant, for Keynes’s rooms in King’s College, Cambridge (see no. XXXX).
During the Omega period, Grant, Bell and Fry relied on a variety of friends and acquaintances to stitch their designs in wool and silk. In later years, Grant’s mother Ethel Grant became the most prolific and sensitive interpreter of her son’s designs. [Richard Shone]