Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1781301336 ISBN 13: 9781781301333

Publisher: Philip Wilson Publishers, 2025

Synopsis

This publication, together with the exhibition it accompanies, presents the largest ever survey of work by Vanessa Bell (1879–1961).

Described in 1923 as 'the most important woman painter in Europe', Bell was a pioneering modernist and founding member of the Bloomsbury Group, a circle of influential English artists, writers and intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century.

The book traces Bell's explorations into the Italian Renaissance, her encounters with the European avant-garde, including Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, and her leading role in social and cultural activities such as the Friday Club, a group of artists founded in 1905, as well as the design enterprise Omega Workshops. It also looks at the key contributions Bell made towards the development of abstract art, creating what friend and art critic Roger Fry described as 'visual music'.

Collaborations formed an essential part of Bell's approach to art, including with her sister, the writer Virginia Woolf, and the artist Duncan Grant, with whom Vanessa Bell's all-encompassing approach to art found its ultimate expression in Charleston, the farmhouse they shared in East Sussex.

Through over 130 works of art produced across her entire career this book examines the development of Bell's landscapes, still lifes and portraits alongside her wider approach to creativity through design, furniture, ceramics and drawings.

About this title

About the Authors

Rebecca Birrell grew up in Southport, and lives in Cambridge. She studied English Literature at UCL, followed by Women's Studies at the University of Oxford. She has occupied curatorial positions at the Jewish Museum London, the Department of Prints and Drawing at the British Museum and at the Charleston Trust. In 2018 she undertook a fellowship at the Yale Centre for British Art. She completed her PhD at the Edinburgh College of Art. She is a curator in the Department of Paintings, Drawings and Prints at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

Fay Blanchard is Head of Exhibitions at MK Gallery. Prior to joining the gallery she worked as Visual Arts Curator with the British Council. She has produced publications on contemporary British sculpture and artists including Paula Rego, Laura Knight and Boyd & Evans.

Anthony Spira is Director of MK Gallery, having been curator at the Whitechapel Gallery, London and the Jeu de Paume, Paris. He has produced many publications on artists including Ellen Altfest, Hans Bellmer, Peter Dreher, Ingrid Pollard and George Stubbs.

Edition details

• Publisher: Philip Wilson Publishers
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1781301336
• ISBN 13: 9781781301333
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Blanchard Fay, Spira Anthony