Peonies and Poppies 1929

Roger Fry’s oil painting, Peonies and Poppies, explores the decorative potential of floral arrangements. Fry’s work sits at the intersection of the Bloomsbury Group and the Omega Workshops, and it’s important to see it in this context. The Bloomsbury Group, with its emphasis on aesthetic experience and its rejection of Victorian social codes, profoundly influenced the character of British modernism. At the same time, figures like Fry were seeking to overturn the established hierarchy of the art world. The Omega Workshops, which he founded in 1913, sought to break down the traditional distinction between fine and decorative arts. Fry wanted to bring the aesthetic values of modern painting into everyday life. To learn more, consult the archives of the Omega Workshops, as well as biographies of Bloomsbury figures like Virginia Woolf. These resources reveal the dynamics of taste and artistic production in the early 20th century.