We present results on dielectron production in {sup 40}Ar+KCl collisions at 1.76A GeV. For the first time {omega} mesons could be reconstructed in a heavy-ion reaction at a bombarding energy which is well below the production threshold in free nucleon-nucleon collisions. The {omega} multiplicity has been extracted and compared to the yields of other particles, in particular of the {phi} meson. At intermediate e{sup +}e{sup -} invariant masses, we find a strong enhancement of the pair yield over a reference spectrum from elementary nucleon-nucleon reactions, suggesting the onset of nontrivial effects of the nuclear medium. Transverse-mass spectra and angular distributions have been reconstructed in three invariant mass bins. In the former unexpectedly large slopes are found for high-mass pairs. The latter, in particular the helicity-angle distributions, are largely consistent with expectations for a pair cocktail dominated at intermediate masses by {Delta} Dalitz decays.