Overview

A delightful gift book devoted to the art and design of Vanessa Bell, a central figure in the internationally popular Bloomsbury group. The painter Vanessa Bell initiated a step change in modern British art, bringing the bright palette and bold stylization of the Parisian avant-garde to London. She was a central figure in the Bloomsbury group, alongside members of her family and close circle including Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell and Duncan Grant. This book explores Bell's radical approach to art and life through her paintings and designs for interiors, gardens, book jackets and more, bringing her work out of the shadow of her male contemporaries while celebrating her collaborative approach. Illustrated by over 100 striking images drawn from the V&A's important collection of her work, this engaging overview also considers Bell's unique, artisanal designs for the Omega Workshops and for Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex, her family residence, foregrounding the home as a crucial site of modernity.

Full Product Details

9780500481059

Table of Contents

Reviews

A slim, square tile of a volume perfect for summer reading... Delving into this condensed guide to [Vanessa Bell's] radical work and life is essential for anyone who, as author Rosalind McKever writes, shares Bell's belief in ""the central tenet of modernism: to blend art and life.""-- ""Hyperallergic"" (4/30/2025 12:00:00 AM)

This charmingly colorful volume displays Bell's painting interspersed with her designs for textiles, china, book jackets for her sister Virginia Woolf, and more.-- ""The New Criterion"" (6/3/2025 12:00:00 AM) A slim, square tile of a volume perfect for summer reading... Delving into this condensed guide to [Vanessa Bell's] radical work and life is essential for anyone who, as author Rosalind McKever writes, shares Bell's belief in ""the central tenet of modernism: to blend art and life.""-- ""Hyperallergic"" (4/30/2025 12:00:00 AM)

Author Information

Rosalind McKever is Curator of Paintings and Drawings at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. She has curated exhibitions at the V&A and the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of Sao Paulo, and has held fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the National Gallery, London.

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