Vanessa Bell (1879-1961)

Vanessa Stephen, was born in 1879 into an upper-middle-class English family, which was
noted for its intellectual and artistic pursuits1. She was the daughter of Leslie Stephen and
Julia Princep Duckworth. Her mother had three children from her first marriage, George
Duckworth, Stella Duckworth, and Gerald Duckworth. Over the next few years she gave
birth to three more children who were Vanessas siblings: Thoby Stephen (1880), Virginia
Stephen (1882) and Adrian Stephen (1883)2.
On 1896 she began studying drawing at Arthur Cope's School of Art three times a
week. She was especially close to her younger sister Virginia. When Vanessa was not in her
art class, the sisters often spent mornings companionably closeted away in a little classroom
at the back of the drawing-room, almost entirely made up of windows and perfect for quiet
writing and painting In 1901, Vanessa began attending the Slade School of Art for a short
period since after the death of their father in 1904 Vanessa and Virginia moved to
Bloomsbury. There, their brother, Thoby, introduced them to some of his friends that he had
met at Cambridge University. They began meetings to discuss literary and artistic issues
and eventually became known as the Bloomsbury Group. The entry of Roger Fry into
Bloomsbury in 1910 radically altered Vanessa Bell's life and art. Her painting, boldly
simplified, was now shorn of all detail and intrusive sentiment 3. Her willingness to
experiment placed her in the forefront of the avant-garde, and she was one of the first in
England to essay a non-representational style4.
Clive Bell, another member of the group, fell in love with Vanessa. Her sister,
Virginia, was at first unimpressed with Bell and compared him unfavorably with her father
1Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa Bell
and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens University,
1999. 4.
2 John Simkin. Art: 1900-1950: Vanessa Bell Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JbellV.htm
3 Isabell Ascombe. Omega and After: Bloomsbury and the Decorative. New
York: Thames and Hudson, 1981. 35.
4John Simkin. Art: 1900-1950: Vanessa Bell Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JbellV.htm

and brother, so following her advice, Vanessa initially rejected him. However, following the
early death of her brother Thoby Stephen, she married Bell on 7th February 1907. The
couple had two sons: Julian Bell (1908-1937) and Quentin Bell (1910-1996)5.
In 1913 Vanessa Bell joined with Roger Fry and Duncan Grant to form the Omega
Workshops. Other artists involved included Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Percy Wyndham Lewis
and Frederick Etchells6.Throughout their lives, Bell and Grant worked together, first at the
Omega Workshops and later at Charleston, sharing models and subjects7. Early in her career
Bells style was almost abstract and Post-impressionistic; inspired by formalist theories
developed by Fry who had become her close friend. She was heavily involved in the early
stages of the Omega Workshops and retained a lifelong interest in decorative schemes 8;
which would bring pattern and color into everyday domestic surroundings 9. Her decorative
work was outstanding in its unforced simplicity. This is seen especially in her book-jacket
designs for the Hogarth Press, which helped establish its distinctive house-style10.
After the demise of the Omega Workshops, Bell still continued to produce
decorative art particularly at Charleston, where she and Duncan Grant had designed
furniture and decorated a house they shared 11. She was also having an affair with Grant and
three years later they had a daughter, Angelica. Charleston became a gathering place for
5John Simkin. Art: 1900-1950: Vanessa Bell Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JbellV.htm
6 John Simkin. Art: 1900-1950: Vanessa Bell Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JbellV.htm
7 Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa Bell
and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens University,
1999. 5.
8 Isabell Ascombe. Omega and After: Bloomsbury and the Decorative. New
York: Thames and Hudson, 1981. 35.
9Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa Bell
and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens University,
1999. 5.
10 Isabell Ascombe. Omega and After: Bloomsbury and the Decorative. New
York: Thames and Hudson, 1981. 36.

members of Bloomsbury and Bell was at the center of the literary and artistic discussions
that took place there12.
From the time of her first solo show in 1915 until her death in 1961, Bell
participated regularly in group shows and retrospective exhibitions in London, Paris and
New York13. Like other artists of her generation she ended up adopting a more naturalistic
style after World War I. Her paintings concentrated mostly on portraits, landscape and
domestic space with variations of abstract and representational aspects 14. Yet, despite this
impressive career, Bell's reputation is often reduced in the literature to that of
"housemother" of Bloomsbury15. Therefore, many of her portraits illuminate the particular
costs and benefits that being a woman of Bloomsbury involved. They present complicated
representations of women expressing, through experimental modernist form, the conflicting
their roles at the time16.
Vanessa Bell died at the Charleston Farmhouse, at the age of eighty-one after a bout
of bronchitis, on April 7th, 1961. She was buried on April 12 th, without any form of service,
in Firle Parish Churchyard.17 Unfortunately, only Virginia Woolfs creative production has
11Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa Bell
and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens University,
1999. 5.
12 Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa
Bell and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens
University, 1999. 5.5.
13 Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa
Bell and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens
University, 1999. 5-6.
14Isabell Ascombe. Omega and After: Bloomsbury and the Decorative. New
York: Thames and Hudson, 1981. 40.
15Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa Bell
and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens University,
1999. 5-6.
16 Idem. 45-6.
17John Simkin. Art: 1900-1950: Vanessa Bell Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JbellV.htm

been analyzed critically while Vanessa Bell's art has been treated as secondary to both
Virginias personal life and writing18. Many of her paintings can be seen on the following
webpage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/vanessa-bell
Bibliography:
Ascombe, Isabell. Omega and After: Bloomsbury and the Decorative. New York: Thames
and Hudson, 1981
Mussels, Samantha. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa Bell and Dora
Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario: Queens University, 1999.
Simkin, John. Art: 1900-1950: Vanessa Bell Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JbellV.htm

18Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa Bell

and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens University,
1999. 27.

Dora Carrington (1893-1932)

Dora de Houghton Carrington was born in Hereford May 29th 1893. She was the fourth of
child of Samuel Carrington, a railway engineer and his wife, Charlotte Houghton. She was
brought up with a very religious and conservative education19.
In 1910 she entered to the Slade School of Fine Art in London where she met John
Nash, who aroused her interest in wood-engraving, and Mark Gertler, whose powerful
figure paintings influenced her own approach to portraiture 20. Her time at the Slade also
coincided with Roger Fry's Post-lmpressionist Exhibitions. His works also had a very
strong influence on her art. She spent four years at the Slade and was recognized by her
friends as a highly skilled artist; she won a Slade Scholarship and four prizes and was
always an acute critic21.
Shortly after graduation, Carrington was introduced to the Bloomsbury Group
whose members included Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Roger Fry and Virginia Woolf 22.
During that period Mark Gertler from the Slade fell in love with Carrington and asked her
to marry him in a letter where he listed the reasons why she should accept his proposal: "(1)
I am a very promising artist - one who is likely to make a lot of money; (2) I am an
intelligent companion; (3) You would not have to rely upon your people; (4) I could help
you in your art career. (5) You would have absolute freedom and a nice studio of your
own"23. Nevertheless, she rejected Gertler as a lover and set up home with the homosexual
essayist and biographer Lytton Strachey (18801932) of the Bloomsbury group 24, even
though it was evident almost from the start that they were to enjoy a more platonic
19 John Simkin. Art: 1900-1950: Dora Carrington Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTcarrington.htm?menu=art
20 Michael Holroyd. Lytton Strachey: A Critical Biography, 2 vols. London, 1968
21 Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa
Bell and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens
University, 1999. 6.
22 Idem.
23John Simkin. Art: 1900-1950: Dora Carrington Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTcarrington.htm?menu=art

relationship rather than a sexual one25. The writer Aldous Huxley also fell in love with
Carrington. Although she enjoyed his company she was not looking for a physical
relationship with him. Huxley based the character Mary Bracegirdle from his novel Crome
Yellow on Carrington and there he also recreated his many discussions with her, especially
one where she explained what she was looking for in a man: "It must be somebody
intelligent, somebody with intellectual interests that I can share. And it must be somebody
with a proper respect for women, somebody who's prepared to talk seriously about his work
and his ideas and about my work and my ideas. It isn't, as you see, at all easy to find the
right person".26
Her friends tried to help her career. Virginia Woolf commissioned her to produce
several woodcuts for Hogarth Press and Roger Fry provided her with the work of restoring
a Mantegna for Hampton Court27. She worked briefly at the Omega Workshop, but then in
1917, she moved out of London to Berkshire with her companion, Strachey. This move
isolated her somewhat from the London art scene, but she continued to produce many
highly-praised portraits and landscapes. The artist Simon Bussy claimed that Carrington's
paintings were better than anything at the London Group, and also when Andr Derain
visited London with Picasso in 1919, he selected Carrington as one of the most exciting
artists. In 1921, Fry selected one of her works, Tulips (c. 1921), for the "Nameless
Exhibition of Modem British Painting" at the Grosvenor Galleries in London28.

24 Michael Holroyd. Lytton Strachey: A Critical Biography, 2 vols. London, 1968

25 John Simkin. Art: 1900-1950: Dora Carrington Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTcarrington.htm?menu=art
26John Simkin. Art: 1900-1950: Dora Carrington Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTcarrington.htm?menu=art
27John Simkin. Art: 1900-1950: Dora Carrington Spartacus Educational.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTcarrington.htm?menu=art

Carringtons main interest was always decorative arts and she worked continually at both
easel paintings and decorative works throughout her life. She undertook many decorative
commissions, including fresco panels, pub signs, and book illustrations. She also actively
produced and sold painted tiles and glass pictures. However, the majority of her work was
concentrated in the decoration of the homes she shared with Strachey in Harnspray and
Tidmarsh Mill. She traveled throughout Europe and corresponded with artists such as
Henry Lamb, Augustus John, brother of the well-known woman painter Gwen John, and
Virginia Woolf29. Although Carrington kept working on art many of her practices have yet
to be recognized as signifiers of professionalism. The fact that she rarely sold her paintings
and earned more with decorative art gave the impression that she was an amateur artist30.
She participated in only a handful of exhibitions during her lifetime and her first solo show
did not appear until almost forty years after her death. This reluctance on her part to exhibit
is attributed variously in the literature to her self-effacement, as well as her involving
position as domestic caretaker, her consuming love for Lytton Strachey, and other genderrelated issues31.
28 Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa
Bell and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens
University, 1999. 6-7.
29 Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa
Bell and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens
University, 1999. 7.
30Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa Bell
and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens University,
1999. 13.
31 Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa
Bell and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens
University, 1999. 13.

Her painting can be described as uneven and at times awkward, but always bringing poetic
vehemence to her well-constructed image. She tends to be aligned more with her Slade
contemporaries than with Bloomsbury, since she was often more Pre-Raphaelite than PostImpressionist32.Emotional relationships further diversified her interests and much of her
creative energy went into her letters which, with their mongrel prose, inimitable spelling
and spontaneous illustrations, provide an exceptional insight into her life and character.33
Dora Carrington committed suicide at the age of 38 two months after Stratcheys
death by cancer, she committed suicide. Only recently has her work been properly collected
and documented. Carrington's disinterest in exhibiting and her early death no doubt
contributed to her virtual absence from art history34. Many of her paintings can be seen in
the following webpage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/dora-carrington
Bibliography:
Gerzina, Gretchen H. Carrington: Another Look at Bloomsbury. Stanford: Stanford U P,
1985.
Hill, Jane. The Art of Dora Carrington. London: The Herbert Press, 1994.
Holroyd, Michael. Lytton Strachey: A Critical Biography, 2 vols. London, 1968.
Mussels, Samantha. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa Bell and Dora
Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario: Queens University, 1999.
Simkin, John. Art: 1900-1950: Dora Carrington Spartacus
Educational.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/ARTcarrington.htm?menu=art

32 Jane Hill. The Art of Dora Carrington. London: The Herbert Press, 1994. 57.
33 Gretchen H. Gerzina: Carrington: Another Look at Bloomsbury. Stanford U P,
1985. 94.
34 Samantha Mussels. In the Shadow of Bloomsbury: Representing Vanessa
Bell and Dora Carrington in the Writing of Art History. Ontario, Queens
University, 1999. 7.