Vanessa Bell

Published in conjunction with the Spring 2017 Dulwich Picture Gallery’s exhibition, 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.

Features 182 color photographs.