Quentin Bell – författare

The newly revised and updated Charleston: A Bloomsbury House & Garden is the definitive publication on the Bloomsbury Group's rural outpost in the heart of the Sussex Downs.“It’s absolutely perfect…”, wrote the artist Vanessa Bell when she moved to Charleston in 1916. For fifty years, Vanessa and her fellow painter Duncan Grant lived, loved and worked in this isolated Sussex farmhouse, together transforming the house and garden into an extraordinary work of art and creating a rural retreat for the Bloomsbury group. Now, Vanessa’s son, Quentin Bell, and her granddaughter Virginia Nicholson tell the inside story of their family home, linking it with some of the pioneering cultural figures who spent time there, including Vanessa’s sister Virginia Woolf, the economist Maynard Keynes, the writer Lytton Strachey and the art critic Roger Fry. Taking readers through each room of the house – from Clive Bell's Study, the Dining Room, the Kitchen and the Garden Room, through to individual bedrooms, the Studios and the Library – Quentin Bell relives old memories, including having T.S. Eliot over for a dinner party and staging plays in the Studio, while Virginia Nicholson details the artistic techniques (stencilling, embroidery, painting, sculpture, ceramics and more) used to embellish and enliven the once simple farmhouse.In this refreshed edition of the original 1997 publication, Gavin Kingcombe’s specially commissioned photographs breathe life into the colourful interiors and garden of the Sussex farmhouse, while updated text and captions by Virginia Nicholson capture the evolution of Charleston as it continues to inspire a new generation.For lovers of literature, decorative arts, and all things Bloomsbury, Charleston: A Bloomsbury House & Garden offers a window onto a truly unique creative hub.

The author recounts anecdotes of his parents, Vanessa and Clive Bell, his aunt, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, Maynard Keynes, Anthony Blunt, and other British writers and artists.

As the nephew of Virginia Woolf, Quentin Bell enjoyed an initimacy with his subject granted to few biographers. Originally published in two volumes in 1972, his acclaimed biography describes Virginia Woolf's family and childhood; her earliest writings; the formation of the Bloomsbury Group; her marriage to Leonard Woolf; the mental breakdown of the years 1912-15; the origins and growth of the Hogarth Press; her friendships with T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield and Vita Sackvill-West; her struggles to write The Waves and The Years; and the political and personal distresses of her last decade. Compelling, moving and entertaining, Quentin Bell's biography was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize. It is a fitting tribute to a remarkable and complex woman, one of the greatest writers of the century.

First published in 1963, The Schools of Design is a history of English Art Education. The story of the genesis of English art schools is one of the fierce conflicts in which private feuds mingle with questions of principle. It is a story of administrative chaos and open scandal in which some long-forgotten figures are involved; others – such as Haydon, Gladstone, Alfred Stevens, Dyce, Stafford Northcote, Etty and Henry Role – appear in a new role. In itself this forms an entertaining study full of incident and drama. Many of the problems that presented themselves in the 1840s are still with us today and no one who is interested in the place of art in our society can afford to neglect the lessons of the Schools of Design. This book will be of interest to students of art and history.

First published in 1963, The Schools of Design is a history of English Art Education. The story of the genesis of English art schools is one of the fierce conflicts in which private feuds mingle with questions of principle. It is a story of administrative chaos and open scandal in which some long-forgotten figures are involved; others – such as Haydon, Gladstone, Alfred Stevens, Dyce, Stafford Northcote, Etty and Henry Role – appear in a new role. In itself this forms an entertaining study full of incident and drama. Many of the problems that presented themselves in the 1840s are still with us today and no one who is interested in the place of art in our society can afford to neglect the lessons of the Schools of Design. This book will be of interest to students of art and history.

First published in 1967, Victorian Artists documents the painting of the Victorian period, that is, the period between the death of Constable and William IV in 1837, the first Post-Impressionist painting in 1910 and the end of an epoch in British painting. Professor Bell has given special attention to some of the pre-Raphaelite artists, and to Sickert and the Camden Town group. These most illuminating and diverting essays, which originated as Slade lectures at Oxford, combined with a large collection of illustrations, make this a unique discussion of a period whose aesthetic influence is still widely evident. This book will be of interest to students of art and history.