Vanessa Bell

1879-1961. Née Vanessa Stephen. Painter and older sister of Virginia Woolf.

Vanessa Stephen was born in 1879. She was the eldest of the four Stephen children. In 1904 her father died and the siblings, Vanessa, Thoby, Adrian and Virginia, sold their family home and moved to a new House at 46 Gordon Street, Bloomsbury. They often invited friends to their home. The Group of young artists and writers they were surrounded with is therefore known under the name of Bloomsbury Group. Vanessa started the “Friday Club” were she met with other artists on Fridays. After the death of her younger brother Thoby in 1907 she finally accepted Clive Bell's proposal of marriage, which she had refused twice before. They had two sons. Julian Bell was born in 1908 and Quentin was born in 1910. Later Vanessa started a relationship with Roger Fry and her husband also had an affair with another woman. They stayed friends and he kept on caring for their two sons financially. Vanessa Bell then had a close relationship with the artist Duncan Grant.

They rented Charleston Farmhouse, where they moved in 1916 together with Vanessa’s children and also Duncan’s lover David Garnett. In 1918 Duncan and Vanessa had a daughter. Angelica Bell only learned that Clive Bell was not her true father when she was 19 and she in the end got married to David Garnett in 1942. Obviously her parents were quite shocked about her choice of marriage partner.

Charleston Farmhouse was kept as a summer home after the end of the First World War Vanessa and Duncan both had studios at Charleston and they also decorated the house, so it would fit their paintings. During the Second World War the Charleston Farmhouse became their full-time home again, because it was far away from London and the bombings. Today the estate is kept by the Charleston trust and can be visited.

Sources:

Shone, Richard. The Art of Bloomsbury: Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, and Duncan Grant. Exhibition Catalogue: Tate Gallery 1999, Princeton: PUP. 1999.