Still Life with Fruit and Coffee Pot

Duncan Grant first began using collage in his easel paintings in early 1914. There were obvious recent precedents for this in the work of his contemporaries in Paris but it was a move also informed by his working practice as a designer at the Omega Workshops, founded the year before. Painted and cut paper was frequently used in the design process, particularly for textiles and inlaid wood furniture and objects. Grant continued to use collage until circa 1916. This brilliantly coloured still life was signed and dated quite soon after it was painted and it may well have been one of the three works he showed as an invited exhibitor with the Vorticists in London in June 1915. It is not known where the work was painted - possibly his rooms at 38 Brunswick Square or in Clive and Vanessa Bell's house at 46 Gordon Square where he painted several works using collage in 1914-15. The objects on the table - probably part 'found' and part arranged - and the apparently abstract decoration seen behind the table - suggest an after-lunch studio improvisation. The use of collage in this work is not immediately apparent but, on closer examination, is in fact quite extensive. Grant has employed it here to emphasise certain shapes or strengthen contours (as in the lower right curve of the lustre coffee pot).

Until the early 1980s, this painting was for many years owned by Lord and Lady Rennell of Rodd. Lady Rennell (1901-1981) painted professionally under the name Mary Rennell and there are works by her in the Tate collection and the Bank of England.

R.S.