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Creator:
Vanessa Bell, 1879–1961
Title:
Self-Portrait
Date:
ca. 1915
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas laid on panel
Dimensions:
25 1/8 x 18 1/16 inches (63.8 x 45.9 cm), Frame: 29 1/4 × 23 1/8 × 3 inches (74.3 × 58.7 × 7.6 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
Copyright Status:
© Estate of the Artist
Accession Number:
B1982.16.2
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:
B1982.16.2FR
Subject Terms:
brushstrokes | costume | design | fabric | form | headgear | outerwear | pattern (design element) | portrait | self-portrait | stripes | woman
Associated People:
Bell [née Stephen], Vanessa (1879–1961), painter
Access:
Not on view
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:5050
Export:
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IIIF Manifest:
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In contrast to Duncan Grant’s portrait of Vanessa Bell (shown nearby), in which Bell is lying wearily on an armchair, this bold self-portrait shows the artist leaning forward and confronting the viewer with her gaze. Almost filling the frame, Bell reduces the room to an assemblage of abstract shapes. She was one of the first British artists to produce purely abstract paintings in the years before the First World War, responding in part to the exhibition of postimpressionist art that was held in London in December 1910. Bell was especially impressed by the works of Henri Matisse, whose bright palette and use of strong, simple outlines probably influenced this painting.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016


The artist Vanessa Bell was remembered by her daughter by Duncan Grant, Angelica Garnett, as "a Madonna with a sense of humor." She went on:
"Vanessa had a kind of stoical warmth about her, a monolithic quality that reminded one…of the implacable smile of primitive Aphrodite…Even if she said little, there emanated from her an enormous power, a pungency like the smell of crushed sage."
Elsewhere, her sister the novelist Virginia Woolf remarked that Vanessa had the buoyant cheerfulness of a dolphin. This modest self-portrait to some extent recalls both types of observation, while the act of self-imaging runs parallel with the crucial emphasis among many members of the Bloomsbury circle upon memoir, and written rumination.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2008

Vanessa Bell (1879 - 1961) (Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2017-02-08 - 2017-06-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

A Room of Their Own - The Artists of Bloomsbury in American Collections (Palmer Museum of Art, 2010-07-06 - 2010-09-26) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Figuring Women - The Female in Modern British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-03-28 - 2008-06-08) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

The Mirror and the Mask - Portraiture in the Age of Picasso (Kimbell Art Museum, 2007-06-17 - 2007-09-16) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Revisiting Traditions [BAC 20th century painting & sculpture] (Yale Center for British Art, 2002-04-30 - 2005-05-18) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Bloomsbury Group (Yale Center for British Art, 2000-05-20 - 2000-09-03) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of South Australia, 1998-09-16 - 1998-11-15) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Queensland Art Gallery, 1998-07-15 - 1998-09-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998-05-01 - 1998-07-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) (Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, 1984-09-20 - 1984-10-28) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

A " Lavendar Talent " or " The Most Important Woman Painter in Europe " ?, Reassessing Vanessa Bell , Art History, vol..6, February 2013, pp. 144-45, Pl. 14, N1 A75 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977-1986, Yale Center for British Art , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1986, pp. 9, 10, 11, no. 2, fig. 2, N590.2 A7 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Paloma Alarcâo, The mirror & the mask, portraiture in the age of Picasso , Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth Madrid, 2007, p. 106, no. 36, ND1313.6 A53 2007 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

Art Across North America, Outstanding Exhibitions , Apollo, vol. 112, September 1980, p. 200, fig. 2, N1 A54 112:1 OVERSIZE [ORBIS]

Rebecca Birrell, This dark country : women artists, still life and intimacy in the early twentieth century, Bloomsbury Circus, London, p. 219-220, N8354 .B57 2021 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Liana Cheney, Self-portraits by women painters, Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, England Brookfield, Vt., 2000, p. 171, no. VIII.1, ND1329.3 A77 C44 2000 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 22-23, N590.2 A83 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Martina Droth, Britain in the world: Highlights from the Yale Center for British Art in honor of Amy Meyers, Yale University Press, New Haven, London, p. 145, N6761 .Y33 2019 (LC) (YCBA) [YCBA]

Jane Dunn, A very close conspiracy, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf , J. Cape, London, UK, 1990, p. 179, fig. 29, NJ18 B3907 D85 1990 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Figuring women, the female in modern British art. , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2008, front cover, V 1925 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Gretchen Gerzina, A room of their own : the Bloomsbury artists in American collections, , Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Ithaca, NY, 2008, p. 128, fig. 10, ND468.5.B55 R66 2008 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Matthew Hargraves, "Yale Center for British Art joins Art UK", ArtUK, 24 June 2019, Available online https://artuk.org/discover/stories/yale-center-for-british-art-joins-art-uk [Website]

Michael Holroyd, Rediscovery, The Bloomsbury Painters , Art in America, v. 58, July 1970, pp. 116-123, N1 A43 + (Haas) [ORBIS]

Julia Marciari-Alexander, This other Eden : Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, p. 182, no. 75, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Jan Marsh, Bloomsbury women, distinct figures in life and art , Pavilion, London, 1995, p. 72, no. 44, DA685 B65 M27 1995 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Sarh Milroy, Vanessa Bell, London, New York, 2017, p. 63, front cover, NJ18 B3907 +A12 2017 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Pamela Gerrish Nunn, From Victorian to Modern : Innovation and Tradition in the Work of Vanessa Bell, Gwen John and Laura Knight, Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd, London, 2006, pp. 54, 107, fig. 40, N6767.5.V52 N85 2006 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 1, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Duncan Robinson, Acquisitions : The First Decade 1977 - 1986, , Burlington Magazine, vol. 128, October 1986, pp. 9, 10, 11, no. 2, fig. 2, N1 B87 128:3 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Self-Portrait (Art Reproduction), ART News, v. 83, April 1984, p. 33, N1 A6 OVERSIZE (HAAS) [ORBIS]

Richard Shone, Vanessa Bell, 1879-1961 : a retrospective exhibition, April 18-May 24, 1980, , Davis & Long Company, New York, New York, 1980, pp. 22-23, no. 24, NJ18 B3907 S56 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Vanessa Bell, 1879-1961 : an exhibition of her paintings, drawings, designs, prints and book jackets, , Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York, 1984, pp. 14, 16, no. 8, NJ18 B3907 C37 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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