Vanessa Bell: The Courtauld spotlights one of the pioneers of the Bloomsbury group
We visit the latest exhibition to focus on one of the leading members of the British avant-garde movement
June 5, 2024
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
The Courtauld holds a substantial collection of work from the Bloomsbury Group, the polyamorous Bohemian circle of writers, artists and intellectuals, now experiencing a bourgeoisie renaissance. The prize piece, A Conversation (1913-16), rightly holds centre stage in this new exhibition focussing on Vanessa Bell. The simplification of form and colour into plains mirrors the work of Paul Gauguin among the French artists Bell and other Bloomsbury Group members were engaging with at the time. French Post-Impressionist art was first exhibited in Britain by fellow Bloomsbury Group member Roger Fry, in 1910 at the Grafton Galleries, thus The Bloomsbury Group was a key vein through which French Post-Impressionism flowed into the United Kingdom, linking the paintings of The Courtauld’s third-floor galleries to this temporary exhibition.
The exhibition reveals that, despite displaying notable talent herself, Bell has been overshadowed by her romantic and familial entanglements. Bell had a well-documented relationship with Roger Fry, as well as with fellow painter Duncan Grant, not to mention being eclipsed by the fame of her sister Virginia Woolf.
The exhibition seeks to illuminate Bell’s place in the founding and running of The Omega Workshop. Ahead of the famed German Bauhaus, Bell, Clive and Grant sought to dissolve the distinction between Fine and Decorative Arts. Anticipating the Gesamtkunstwerk (the concept of the full work of art) the Workshop sought to redefine living space with an aesthetic based on contemporary emotion-driven art. Artists working for the workshop were given the opportunity to work across different media producing ceramics, furniture, textiles and household objects.
The painting Arum Lilies and Iris (c.1919) illustrates this point; Bell, like Ruskin and Morris before her, saw art in domestic objects and spaces. The Omega Workshop wanted to bring decorative and Fine Arts together, and this still-life is far more a painting of a vase and chair than it is of the lilies. The iris is barely distinguishable, with much more attention paid to the delicate depiction of the hand-painted rush-seated chair.
Another example is the design for a folding screen which – when assembled – would rupture the boundary between the wall as the locus for art and the room as domestic space, bringing art into the heart of the interior. In this screen typical of the interior decoration at Charleston, where Bell conducted a menage-a-trois with her husband Clive and Duncan Grant, two dynamic nude figures unashamedly prance through the space in a verdant display of sexual frivolity.
Fry believed that the Workshop’s products should sell entirely on their own merits and not rest on the reputation of an artist, meaning none of the designs were signed. The artists strived for a unified ‘house style’ encapsulated by the vivid and fragmented art of Cubism and Fauvism, making up British art’s first forays into abstraction. However, it is often possible to detect an artist's individual hand - the designs displayed in the exhibition have all been confidently attributed to Bell and Grant working together, many created while they were lovers.
Bell was influenced by the colouring of Cezanne and Matisse assembling her paintings and designs into plains of colour. She explained to Fry in a letter that she saw the ‘picture as patches, each of which has to be filled by one definite space of colour… not allowing myself to brush the patches into each other.”
Perhaps for this reason, Bell was interested in mosaic and tiles and worked on several designs with Grant now in the Courtauld’s collection. Bell also looked to Papiers collés, using pieces of paper in her preparatory sketches for designs. Torn paper made it possible to rework with blocks of colour, creating these vital compositions, borne of the Workshop’s ‘relaxed and practical approach’ to use the curator’s own words.
The sketches for the designs of rugs represent some of the earliest examples of abstract art in Europe and, owing to the immense mainstream popularity of the Bloomsbury Group, several of these rugs have now been put into production by The Courtauld and Charleston House and are available to buy via their gift shops.
Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art is showing at The Courtauld until 6th October.
