41 min
Vanessa Bell / The Making of a Pioneer TOAST Podcast
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- Arts
*EXTENDED EPISODE* Vanessa Bell’s portrait is on display in Room 31 at the National Portrait Gallery. Painted by her lover and life partner Duncan Grant somewhere around 1918, it shows her in an easy, contemplative pose, wearing a floral red dress and holding a pale pink rose.
The creative talent of Bell is often overshadowed by that of her sister, Virginia Woolf, and other members of the Bloomsbury Group, to which she belonged. More recently, her work has been reappraised and reconsidered, celebrated for its experimental, often radical force and raw sensuality.
On a brisk Autumn day, Laura Barton heads to Charleston, the country home of the Bloomsbury Group, where the furniture and walls are still covered in Bell’s designs. There she meets the curator Dr Darren Clarke, head gardener Fiona Dennis, and Bell’s granddaughter, the writer Virginia Nicholson.
Charleston Farmhouse is open to the public from Wednesday to Sunday, 10-5pm.
Image: Vanessa Bell by Duncan Grant. Oil on canvas, circa 1918. © National Portrait Gallery, London.
*EXTENDED EPISODE* Vanessa Bell’s portrait is on display in Room 31 at the National Portrait Gallery. Painted by her lover and life partner Duncan Grant somewhere around 1918, it shows her in an easy, contemplative pose, wearing a floral red dress and holding a pale pink rose.
The creative talent of Bell is often overshadowed by that of her sister, Virginia Woolf, and other members of the Bloomsbury Group, to which she belonged. More recently, her work has been reappraised and reconsidered, celebrated for its experimental, often radical force and raw sensuality.
On a brisk Autumn day, Laura Barton heads to Charleston, the country home of the Bloomsbury Group, where the furniture and walls are still covered in Bell’s designs. There she meets the curator Dr Darren Clarke, head gardener Fiona Dennis, and Bell’s granddaughter, the writer Virginia Nicholson.
Charleston Farmhouse is open to the public from Wednesday to Sunday, 10-5pm.
Image: Vanessa Bell by Duncan Grant. Oil on canvas, circa 1918. © National Portrait Gallery, London.
41 min