Vanessa Bell, Self Portrait, 1915.
Vanessa Bell was one of the most radical and influential artists working in Britain and opening up professional opportunities for women, including her sister, Virginia Woolf. She muscled in on the male-dominated culture of British modernism and was one of the first artists in Britain to produce fully-resolved abstract paintings and collages. Her work was exhibited in London and Paris alongside that of Wyndham Lewis, David Bomberg, Thérèse Lessore and artists more closely associated with the Bloomsbury Group in the first decades of the 20th century.
In this ARTscapades talk, Dr Wendy Hitchmough, who was curator at the Bloomsbury artists’ home, Charleston, for over 12 years and is emeritus senior lecturer at the University of Sussex, examines Bell’s paintings of women. She explores the ways in which Bell deliberately positioned her own work within a European canon, presenting an alternative, feminist perspective on female sexuality and fertility.
Vanessa Bell: The Art and Life of a Bloomsbury Radical by Wendy Hitchmough is published by Yale University Press (11 March 2025). Ticket holders will receive a code to use for a discount via their website here. UK orders only. Free UK P&P.
This event will be recorded. Ticket holders are emailed a link to view the recording afterwards which is available for one month. Proceeds from ARTscapades ticket sales benefit museums, galleries and other arts-based organisations and projects.
This is an online event hosted on Zoom which can be watched live with Q&A, or on-demand for one month afterwards. You will receive your link to access the event in your email confirmation and the on-demand link after the event ends.