Vanessa Bell - Hardcover

SPALDING, Frances

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 089919205X ISBN 13: 9780899192055

Publisher: Ticknor, 1983

Synopsis

Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) - the first major museum exhibit devoted to the work of the modernist painter - this stunning book beautifully showcases her oil paintings, photographs, ceramics, fabrics, decorative screens, and works on paper in a marvelous display of Bell's vibrant and wide-ranging talent. Long overshadowed by the complexity of her family life and romantic entanglements as a member of the famed Bloomsbury Group, this collection reconsiders Bell in the context of her relationship with her famous sister, Virginia Woolf, and as muse and confidant to Roger Fry and Duncan Grant - but ultimately as an intrepid artist, deserving of fresh consideration for her artistic genius in her own right. "Inventing a new language of visual expression," Bell's work as an innovative abstractionist is included here, when she experimented in the form decades before it would first get shown in London, and was among the first abstractionists in Europe at the time. Her ground-breaking feminism emerges in her extensive post-Impressionistic work, with her many female subjects and forms detailed throughout the book. What emerges is a collection of work that shows Bell was as radically innovative in the visual arts as her renowned sister was in the literary arts. Each chapter features essays or excerpts from a range of writers, including: Frances Spalding, Hana Leaper, Grace Brockington, Regina Marler, Christopher Reed, Darren Clarke, Virginia Woolf, Julian Bell, Corin Sworn, and Richard Shone. A short chapter called "Legacy" closes the book, and features photographs by famed rocker and photographer Patti Smith, a devoted follower of the artist who often photographed Vanessa Bell's works and Charleston, Bell's home in Sussex.

About this title

About the Author:

Frances Spalding is an art historian, critic and biographer, and a leading authority on Bloomsbury. She wrote an introduction to the subject, The Bloomsbury Group, for the National Portrait Gallery's Companion series, and has written biographies of Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, Gwen Raverat and of the poet Stevie Smith, as well as Vanessa Bell. For ten years she edited the Charleston Magazine. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor of Art History at Newcastle University, and was awarded a CBE in 2005.

Review:

Vanessa Bell emerges from Frances Spalding's sensitive and scholarly biography as an unexpectedly formidable figure...the central portrait is full and generous and it rings wonderfully true.

(The London Times 2016-03-17)

...a compelling life, one worth telling, unusual in its social and intellectual contrasts, formidable in its cast of characters, poignant in its alternations of happiness and despair.

(Spectator 2016-03-17)

"...an excellent biography: it could hardly be bettered... she has brought Vanessa Bell back to life...As a chronicle of human entanglements, and of the ways in which they were resolved, it wil have an enduring fascination...Vanessa Bell adds a new and indispensable dimension to our knowledge of Bloomsbury, and it is very much to be welcomed."

(Times Literary Supplement 2016-03-17)

About this edition

• Publisher: Ticknor
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 089919205X
• ISBN 13: 9780899192055
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 399