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We are grateful to Richard Shone for his assistance with this catalogue note.
Duncan Grant's Table Vase – Design for ‘Macbeth’ is an unusual survival from an ambitious theatrical commission of 1912. Conceived as a painted stage ornament, this design offers an early example of Grant's attempts to extend the formal innovations of Post-Impressionism beyond the canvas.
In 1912, Grant was engaged by the theatre director and dramatist Harley Granville-Barker to design costumes and scenery for a proposed production of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Granville-Barker was then at the forefront of theatrical reform in Britain, seeking to challenge the elaborate naturalism of Victorian Shakespeare productions in favour of a more imaginative approach to staging. His decision to employ Grant, who had little professional status in the theatre world, but was already recognised as one of Britain's most experimental young painters, reflected this ambition.[1]
Granville-Barker first approached Grant in April 1912, intending to stage Macbeth at the Savoy Theatre that autumn. Financial difficulties...
We are grateful to Richard Shone for his assistance with this catalogue note.
Duncan Grant's Table Vase – Design for ‘Macbeth’ is an unusual survival from an ambitious theatrical commission of 1912. Conceived as a painted stage ornament, this design offers an early example of Grant's attempts to extend the formal innovations of Post-Impressionism beyond the canvas.
In 1912, Grant was engaged by the theatre director and dramatist Harley Granville-Barker to design costumes and scenery for a proposed production of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Granville-Barker was then at the forefront of theatrical reform in Britain, seeking to challenge the elaborate naturalism of Victorian Shakespeare productions in favour of a more imaginative approach to staging. His decision to employ Grant, who had little professional status in the theatre world, but was already recognised as one of Britain's most experimental young painters, reflected this ambition.[1]
Granville-Barker first approached Grant in April 1912, intending to stage Macbeth at the Savoy Theatre that autumn. Financial difficulties led to the production's postponement, but plans were revived the following spring. Grant devoted considerable attention to the commission, producing designs for costumes, scenery and stage furnishings, many of which reveal his interest in Byzantine art and the decorative possibilities of colour and pattern.
This daring gouache was conceived as an ornament for the banquet scene in Act III, Scene IV, in which Macbeth is confronted by the ghost of Banquo. The design was intended to be realised as a large, flat, painted cut-out, one of several ornaments arranged along the banquet table. Against a dark background, Grant depicts a monumental vessel in shades of terracotta and red, its narrow base expanding into a broad, angular body surmounted by a shallow neck. Its exaggerated proportions and bold colour would have ensured its visibility from front to back row seats.[2]
The designs for Macbeth coincided with Grant's involvement in the establishment of the Omega Workshops, founded with Roger Fry and Vanessa Bell in 1913. The Workshops sought to dissolve conventional distinctions between fine and decorative art by applying the formal innovations of Post-Impressionist painting to furniture, ceramics, textiles and other everyday domestic objects. As Marjorie Garber has observed, the angular vessels conceived for Macbeth anticipate certain forms subsequently explored in his pottery designs for the Omega Workshops.[3]
Despite Granville-Barker's enthusiasm, the collaboration proved difficult. Grant struggled to reconcile his artistic ideas with the practical demands of a large theatrical production. In June 1913 he withdrew from the project, leaving Granville-Barker free to use the drawings already completed. A second gouache for the banquet scene is in the collection at Charleston.
[1] Marjorie Garber (2023), Shakespeare in Bloomsbury. Yale University Press, p.283.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
