Bell, Vanessa, 1879-1961, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant letters to Kenneth Clark and Jane Clark, ca. 1920-ca.1969
- CallNumber:
- MSS 39
- Creator:
- Bell, Vanessa, 1879-1961
- Title(s):
- Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant letters to Kenneth Clark and Jane Clark
- Date:
- ca. 1920-ca.1969
- Extent:
- .42 linear feet
- Classification:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Abstract:
- The collection comprises correspondence from the artistic partners, Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, to the art historian Kenneth Clark and his wife, Elizabeth “Jane” (née Martin).
- Provenance:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
- AccessRestrict:
- The collection is open without restriction.
- UseRestrict:
- The collection is the physical property of the Yale Center for British Art. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts
- BiogHist:
- Duncan Grant (1885-1978) and Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) were British painters and designers associated with the Bloomsbury Group--an influential group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who lived or worked in around Bloomsbury, London in the first half of the 20th century. Born in Aviemore, Scotland in 1885, Duncan Grant studied at the Westminster School of Art from 1902 to 1905, where he was supported in his learning by the French painter, Simon Bussy. Grant went on to develop his artistic skills in both Italy and France, spending a year studying at Jacques-Émile Blanche’s Académie de La Palette school in Paris in 1906. In 1909, Grant moved to Fitzroy Square in London close to many members of what would become the Bloomsbury Group, including Virginia Woolf, then known as Virginia Stephen. The Bloomsbury Group came to have major influence on art, literature and philosophy and was at the forefront of changing ideas about sexuality, feminism and pacifism in the period. Duncan Grant was the friend, and lover, of many prominent members of the group, including Vanessa Bell, John Maynard Keynes and Lytton Strachey. In 1913, the painter and art critic Roger Fry established Omega Workshops, of which Grant and Vanessa Bell were directors. The workshops produced furniture, pottery and textiles and sought to provide an income to the young artists of the Bloomsbury Group, and others. During the First World War, Grant was a conscientious objector and he and Vanessa Bell set up a house (named Charleston) in Firle, Sussex, where they, and other conscientious objectors, lived and worked throughout and after the war. Although most of Grant’s love affairs were homosexual, Grant and Bell had a daughter named Angelica in 1918, who took the name of Bell’s husband, Clive Bell, with whom both Grant and Vanessa had an amicable relationship. Influenced by the Fauves and Cézanne in the first Post-Impressionist Exhibition of 1910-11, Grant spent the early part of his career working in the Post-Impressionist mold. Grant’s artistic range was prodigious, with his works comprising a variety of mediums including paintings, textiles, pottery, theatre sets and costumes. Born in London in 1879, Vanessa Bell was an artist similarly associated with the Bloomsbury Group. Although often overshadowed by her more famous sister, Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell was an accomplished and influential artist in her own right. Bell was educated at home, taking drawing lessons from Ebenezer Cook, before attending Sir Arthur Cope’s art school in 1896. She went on to study painting at the Royal Academy in 1901. After the deaths of her parents, Bell moved to Bloomsbury where, alongside her sister and brothers, she began to socialize with members of the Bloomsbury Group. Like Grant, Bell was inspired by the Post-Impressionists, creating works with distinctive vision and bold colors and forms. Later in her career, she turned to Abstraction. From the First World War onwards, Bell lived between Charleston and London, in unconventional households which at various periods included Grant, his lovers, her husband, art critic Clive Bell, and his lover Mary Hutchison, and her two sons by Bell, Julian and Quentin, and her daughter by Grant, Angelica. Bell’s children followed in their mother’s creative legacy, with Julian becoming a poet, Quentin an art historian and author and Angelica an artist. Bell’s creative output was extensive and eclectic, incorporating painting, photography, ceramics, fabrics, interiors, decorative screens and works on paper. The recipients of Bell and Grant’s letters, Kenneth (1903-1983) and Elizabeth “Jane” Clark (née Martin) (1902-1976), met as students at Oxford University and married in 1927. Jane was the Irish daughter of Emily Winifred Dickson, the first female Fellow of any Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland or Britain. Kenneth Clark was a prominent British art historian, aesthete, author, museum director and broadcaster. Greatly influenced by John Ruskin, Clark began his career as fine art curator at Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum, before going on to be the director of the National Gallery (at the age of 30). He remains the youngest person ever to hold the position. As Chairman of the War Artists Advisory Committee, and as an advisor to the Ministry of Information, Clark was a major influence on the exhibition and commissioning of art during the Second World War and on the production of propaganda films to support the war effort in Britain. In his post-war career, Clark expanded into broadcasting; he was one of the founders of the Independent Television Authority in 1954 and his 1969 BBC television series <title>Civilisation</title> is often credited with determining the scope and direction of television documentary in the latter half of the twentieth century. In the latter years of his life, he acted as a trustee of the British Museum and served as Chancellor of the University of York. One his last projects in the artistic sphere was to support a campaign to create a Turner Gallery for the Turner Bequest.
- Arrangement:
- The collection is arranged chronologically.
- Genre:
- Correspondence and Postcards
- Subject Terms:
- Art galleries, CommercialArt, BritishBloomsbury groupInterior decorationPaintersPainting, BritishPottersPottery, BritishTablewareWomenWorld War, 1939-1945
- Associated Places:
- Great Britain
- Associated People/Groups:
- Ashtead PotteryBell, Julian, 1908-1937Bell, Vanessa, 1879-1961Clark, Elizabeth Winifred Jane, 1902-1976Clark, Kenneth, 1903-1983Cunard White Star, ltd.Fry, Roger, 1866-1934Grant, Duncan, 1885-1978Josiah Wedgwood & SonsMillers Gallery (Lewes, England)Poole PotteryWoolf, Virginia, 1882-1941
- FindingAidTitle:
- Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant letters to Kenneth Clark and Jane Clark
- Archival Object:
- https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/3/resources/5750
- Metadata Cloud URL:
- https://metadata-api.library.yale.edu/metadatacloud/api/aspace/repositories/3/resources/5750?mediaType=json&include-notes=1&include-all-subjects=1