Exhibition: Vanessa Bell art exhibition

Widely acclaimed as a central figure of the Bloomsbury Group, Bell also stands on her own as a pivotal player in 20th century British art, inventing a new language of visual expression forged from British and continental influences.

Arranged thematically, the exhibition reveals Bell’s pioneering work in the genres of portraiture, still life and landscape and explores her fluid movement between the fine and applied arts, focusing attention on her most distinctive period of experimentation in the 1910s.

Approximately 100 oil paintings as well as ceramics, fabrics, works on paper, photographs and related archival material will deliver Bell in full force, boldly experimenting with abstraction, colour and form while remaining true to her own distinctive way of seeing the world.

Bell’s artistic development was rich and wide-ranging. She studied under varied teachers, including Arthur Cope, Henry Tonks and John Singer Sargent. Her reputation as an artist, however, has been habitually overshadowed by the complexity of her family life and romantic entanglements. She is often seen in a supporting role to her sister, Virginia Woolf, and as muse and confidante to her lovers, friends and fellow artists such as Roger Fry and Duncan Grant.

This exhibition presents Bell for fresh consideration on her own, charting her move from the refined Impressionism of her early training to a more radical, experimental style stimulated by her many visits to Paris and by the post-Impressionist exhibitions held in London in 1910 and 1912.