The sister of Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell’s art was often overlooked in her lifetime. Now, a new exhibition at the Courtauld shows how she put the bloom into the Bloomsbury group. By Amanda Hodges
Vanessa Bell was in many ways the emotional lynchpin of the famous Bloomsbury Group. Virginia Woolf memorably described her older artist sister, born in 1879, as “a bowl of golden water which brims but never overflows,” a testament to her fluid, equable nature and source of calm comfort to more volatile characters. “They lived in squares – painted in circles – and loved in triangles,” drolly quipped Dorothy Parker of the Bloomsbury set, describing an unconventional group of writers, artists and philosophers who created a climate embracing literary and artistic modernism.
Bell’s work has often been subsumed by Bloomsbury rather than appraised for its independent value, something the Courtauld Gallery specifically redresses in their new exhibition. Curator Dr Rachel Sloan says of the display, “In recent years, the Courtauld has been making a priority of showcasing women artists. Highlighting Vanessa Bell, who’s strongly represented in our collection, seemed a natural next step. It’s the first devoted solely to Bell in The Courtauld’s history, although her work’s been included in past exhibitions of the Bloomsbury Group and the Omega Workshops.”
The latter spanned 1913-1919, a design collective where, as Sloan explains, “Bell expanded her work beyond the canvas, from representative figurative studies in oils to bold abstract works and angular prints.” This co-operative sought change, namely “the goal of dissolving the boundary between the so-called ‘fine’ and ‘decorative’ arts, as Bell and fellow artist-designers created domestic spaces that were harmonious, aesthetically satisfying and mind-expanding.” This approach reached its apotheosis at Charleston, the Sussex house where Bell and her children moved to in 1916 (by this time, she was living apart from her husband Clive Bell) transforming the place into a hotbed of artistic experimentation encompassing interiors and abstract paintings plus textiles and furniture.
For Rachel Sloan, Bell’s considerable achievements deserve reappraisal. “It felt timely as there’s only been one previous show on her (at Dulwich in 2017) and interest in her work has blo
