'The Bloomsbury Group shaped more than just paint and fabric, it transformed Virginia Wolf, her writing and English. Neither this exhibition nor any other can display Wolf like an old battered paperback. So take half an hour, pass by Parkinson Court and peak at the intimate lives of the Bloomsbury group'.
For the full article click here
________________________
We would love to hear your feedback and comments on the exhibition. If you would like to share your experience, be it positive or negative, we are always looking for ways to improve our curating skills. Email sd08acp@leeds.ac.uk to give us your feedback.
Connecting Lives Exhibition Inspires Gallery Workshop
Write Me a Picture: Creative Writing Workshop with Suzannah Evans
Saturday, 3 December 2011, 1.30-4pm
The workshop will use exercises based on 'The Sadler Gift' exhibition and the display 'Connecting Lives: Intimate Artworks of Bloomsbury' to inspire creative writing. The focus of the workshop will be on imagining the lives of the people behind the works of art. What can we know about a collector or an artist from their works of art, and how much can we invent? What will be left behind to tell our own stories?
Suitable for writers with a love of art, artists interested in writing or anyone who is somewhere between the two. Facilitated by Leeds poet Suzannah Evans.
Free workshop, but places are limited so please book your place in advance by e-mailing gallery@leeds.ac.uk, phone (0113) 343 2778, or online.
Saturday, 3 December 2011, 1.30-4pm
The workshop will use exercises based on 'The Sadler Gift' exhibition and the display 'Connecting Lives: Intimate Artworks of Bloomsbury' to inspire creative writing. The focus of the workshop will be on imagining the lives of the people behind the works of art. What can we know about a collector or an artist from their works of art, and how much can we invent? What will be left behind to tell our own stories?
Suitable for writers with a love of art, artists interested in writing or anyone who is somewhere between the two. Facilitated by Leeds poet Suzannah Evans.
Free workshop, but places are limited so please book your place in advance by e-mailing gallery@leeds.ac.uk, phone (0113) 343 2778, or online.
Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery
Connecting Lives is being displayed at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, in the Parkinson Building at the University of Leeds:
"A hidden gem at the heart of the University of Leeds campus, the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery offers innovative temporary exhibitions and displays treasures from the University Art Collection.
Entrance is free for visitors to experience the University’s exceptional art collection. The collection includes stunning examples of European and British painting, drawings and prints, dating from the 17th century up to the present day, as well as small collections of sculpture, ceramics, miniatures and photographs."
Visit the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery here
Text taken from the Gallery's website
Duncan Grant (1885-1978)
Duncan Grant besides an enthusiastic painter, sketcher, designer of textiles, pottery aand theatrical sets, was a popular
figure in the avant-garde scene,.[1] He joined the Bloomsbury group around 1909-1910 and from then he became a supportive member of post-impressionism. The connection with the two other painters of the exhibition was catalytic. Roger Fry's Francophilia influenced Grant's work, while the bond with Vanessa Bell was deep and essential. A link which, despite his homosexual choices, led to a child, Angelica Garnett. Regardless of the fact that he did not contribute raising his child, the Mother and Child drawing constitutes an example of his familiar emotions.
The influence of the French masters is obvious in the two other drawings. The seated Angel with a Guitar, reminiscent of figures of Matisse, is a design for a decorative box during the omega workshops. According to Quentin Bell this box used for holding wood at Charleston house, where Vanessa Bell moved in 1916 until her death.[2]
The second Post-impressionist exhibition in 1912 was a significant event for the Bloomsbury group. Duncan Grant's painting The Post-impressionism Ball depicts the celebration party after the exhibition at the Bells London home. The two seated figures are identified as Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.
Vanessa Bell (1879-1961)
Although formally trained as a painter at the Slade School of Art in 1901, it was not until meeting Roger Fry that Vanessa Bell found true artistic inspiration. Following Fry’s first Post-Impressionist exhibition in 1910, Bell wrote ‘Here was a possible path, a sudden liberation and encouragement to feel for oneself, which was absolutely overwhelming’[1].
The circle that was beginning to emerge around Fry would become a corporate venture with the formation of the Omega Workshop in 1913. Bell was named as co-director, alongside Duncan Grant. The pair began a passionate companionship that would remain throughout their lives. Despite its closure in 1919, Omega designs became fashionable over time, keeping works such as Mother and Child in steady demand throughout Bell and Grant’s careers.
In 1916, Bell’s unconventional family moved from London to Charleston House in Sussex, where Bell’s more experimental periods would gradually turn to more private, domestic themes, exemplified here in Shrouded Figure, sketched in the family living room. She remained extremely close to her sister Virginia Woolf, designing numerous book covers for Woolf’s publications. Perhaps the most significant of these is Death of a Moth, drawn shortly after Virginia’s tragic suicide in 1941. The design incorporates the great elm tree at the Woolf’s country retreat, beneath which Virginia’s ashes are buried.
On reflection of her later years, Quentin Bell wrote “Grant’s relationship with Vanessa Bell endured to the end; it became primarily a domestic and creative union, the two artists painting side by side.”
Roger Fry (1866-1934)
Roger Fry was an artist, critic, author and lecturer. He became a key figure in the Bloomsbury group after a chance encounter on a train, meeting Clive and Vanessa Bell. In 1910 he began his assault on the English idea of polite taste with his exhibition of ‘Manet and the Post Impressionists’, term Fry coined himself.
The Reclining Nude (1917) is an important piece, as it shows the ways in which Fry was doing away with traditional conventions, the nude shown here was a shocking image when it was drawn as it showed an imperfect view of beauty, Nina’s cropped hair and slender body wasn’t typical of nude drawings at this time. There are obvious similarities with Matisse in this work and it is easy to see the modernism associated with the French avant-garde’s influence on Fry’s work. This sketch is of his lover Nina Hamnett who appears in many of his works including a large portrait on show in the main gallery.
Nina Hamnett was known by many as the ‘Queen of Bohemia’ she was one of Fry’s biggest inspirations. She was previously associated with the Paris art scene, establishing herself as both an artist and as a flamboyant and promiscuous figure, embracing the bohemian lifestyle becoming well known for such antics as dancing nude on a cafe table amid her drinking friends. Her reputation filtered back to London and on her return she joined Roger Fry and other Bloomsbury artists in the Omega workshop.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)
Virginia Woolf, maybe the most notorious member of the Bloomsbury circle, is known for both her ground breaking novels and troubled lifetime. Even though her work now carries influence worldwide, it was Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s modern developments in painting that are thought to have transformed her creative approach.
In 1941, after completing her final novel, Woolf took her own life, leaving behind two deeply moving suicide notes, one for her husband Leonard and the second for her sister Vanessa Bell. Bell was deeply affected by the loss, and completed a design for ‘The Death of the Moth’ in the months that followed which depicts the tree under which Virginia’s ashes were buried. Quentin Bell noted that this book cover was never intended for publication, and should instead be seen as a touching tribute to Virginia.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)