Courtauld Gallery · West End
Winifred Gill: A Bloomsbury Pioneer
The overlooked contributions of Winifred Gill (1891–1981), central figure at Roger Fry's Omega Workshops — toy designs, still life painting, and prints tracing her work as an arts and crafts educator.
Vorschau: geschrieben vor der Eröffnung
A dancer on a small black plinth is nearly hidden by her own orange shawl, which loops around her in fat curls from her head to her ankles. Winifred Gill painted it as a toy design for Roger Fry's Omega Workshops between 1914 and 1916, and Apollo called these toy watercolours "exuberant".
Gill trained at the Slade and worked at the Omega as a designer, a maker and, for a while, its business manager, then fell out of the Bloomsbury story. This display in the Project Space draws on the Courtauld's own holdings: more toy designs, including a dancer in blue caught in loops of red ribbon, a 1914 still life painted on cardboard, and hand-coloured linocuts from the 1920s, when she taught arts and crafts in Bristol and Manchester. Her printing materials are shown too.
You don't need a separate ticket: it comes with Permanent Collection entry (£16 for adults, free for under-18s and students), alongside the Manets and Van Goghs.
Nicht verpassen
Toy design: Shawl Dance
Look for the dancer almost swallowed by a looping orange shawl, only her face, blue hair and red shoes showing, balanced on a black plinth.
Toy design: Music
A figure in blue overalls and cap kicks one leg back while stretching a wavy orange band over his head, like a cut-out about to spring.
Still Life with Glass Jar and Silver Box
Painted in 1914 on cardboard: glass jars, a silver box and a bowl of fruit set on a ground of brown, blue and cream patches.
Miss Cashmore's Office
A hand-coloured linocut of a snug room: brick fireplace, yellow flowers on the mantelpiece, an armchair and shelves stacked with books.
Snowdrops
Another 1920s hand-coloured linocut: white snowdrops in a striped jug on a bright round mat, set against solid black inside a green zigzag border.
Gut für
- Stadtkenner
- Detailverliebte
Mit Kindern
Under-18s go free with Permanent Collection entry.
