In 1907, Vanessa married Clive Bell[7]. They had two sons, Julian (who died in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War at the age of 29)[1] and Quentin. The couple had an open marriage, both taking lovers throughout their lives. Vanessa Bell had intimate relationships with art critic Roger Fry and with the painter Duncan Grant,[1] with whom she had a daughter, Angelica in 1918, whom Clive Bell raised as his own child.[8]
At Charleston, Bell and Grant painted and worked on commissions for the Omega Workshops, established by Roger Fry. Her first solo exhibition was at the Omega Workshops in 1916.[10]
On 7 April 1961, Vanessa Bell died from a brief illness at Charleston, Firle and was buried in the Firle Parish Churchyard. When Duncan Grant died in 1978, he was buried next to her[11].
In 1906, when Bell started to think of herself as an artist, she formed the Friday Club to create a place in London that was more favourable to painting.[12] Vanessa was encouraged by the Post-Impressionist exhibitions organised by Roger Fry, and she copied their bright colours and bold forms in her artworks. In 1914, she turned to Abstraction.[13]
Bell rejected the examples of Victorian narrative painting and rejected a discourse on the ideal and aberrant qualities of femininity. She also designed book jackets for all of her sister Virginia's books that were published by Virginia and Leonard Woolf's publishing company, the Hogarth Press.[14]
Bell is one of the most celebrated painters of the Bloomsbury group. She exhibited in London and Paris during her lifetime, and has been praised for innovative works and for her contributions to design.[15]
The Tub (1917). Tate Museum, London.
Bell's paintings include Studland Beach (1912),[16]The Tub (1918), Interior with Two Women (1932), and portraits of her sister Virginia Woolf (three in 1912), Aldous Huxley (1929–1930) and David Garnett (1916). Bell also worked with Duncan Grant to create murals for Berwick Church in Sussex (1940–42).[17]
In 1932, Bell and Grant were commissioned to produce a dinner service for Kenneth Clark.[18] With oversight from Kenneth's wife Jane Clark, they produced the Famous Women Dinner Service: 50 plates painted with portraits of notable women throughout history. The collection eventually passed on to a private collector, and passed out of public view until 2017. The full collection was exhibited in London in early 2018.[19]
In the summer of 1909, Iceland Poppies (1908) was exhibited at the New English Art Club. It was praised by Walter Sickert and marks Bell's artistic maturity.[12]
Designs for a Screen: Figures by a Lake (1912), gouache on board, was influenced by Nabis paintings by Édouard Vuillard and Maurice Denis and might have been a part of Bell's exhibit Design for Screen, which was shown at the Friday Club Exhibition in February 1912.[20]
In 1916, Bell's first solo exhibition was held in the Omega Workshop in London, a prominent place for exhibitions which supported young artists and introduced design work to the public. Bell had become a co-director of the Omega Workshop in 1913[21].
Design for Overmantel Mural (1913), oil on paper, depicts herself and Molly MacCarthy naked in Bell's studio at 46 Gordon Square.[citation needed]
Street Corner Conversation (also created in 1913) features four individuals in conversation amidst massive geometrical forms.[citation needed]
Summer Camp (1913), oil on board, illustrates a summer camp organized at Brandon on the Norfolk-Suffolk border near Thetford.[citation needed]
By the Estuary (1915), oil on canvas, is a modestly scaled landscape showing her fondness for clarity of design in which segments of contrasting color harmonize.[citation needed]
Nude with Poppies (1916), oil on canvas, is a preliminary design for a headboard which Bell painted for Mary Hutchinson.[citation needed]
In 1920, she painted a mysterious, narrative painting, “The Party,” which she exhibited in May 1922 at the prestigious London Group Exhibition but was “not for sale.” The painting was prominently illustrated and praised in British Vogue, June 1922, but then disappeared for 61 years until sold by the Anthony d’Offay Gallery from the estate of Virginia Woolf with the title of “Mrs. Dalloway’s Party.” It is unknown who retitled it, and Woolf’s novel, Mrs Dalloway, was not published until 1925. Bell created the cover art for the first edition dust jacket of that novel.
In 2021, Bell was one of four featured women artists at an exhibition at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle.[22][23]
^ abFrances Spalding. "Bell, Vanessa". Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
^Chilvers, Ian. "Bell, Vanessa". The Oxford Companion to Western Art. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 February 2015.
^Vanessa Bell and Dora Carrington: Bloomsbury Painters. Gillian Elinor. Woman's Art Journal. Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring-Summer 1984), pp. 28-34. Woman's Art Inc. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1357882.
