Paintings of Painters Painting : Drawings of Draughts-Persons Drawing

‘Frederick and Jessie Etchells Painting’
Vanessa BELL
oil on board
1912
51 x 53 cm
Tate, London

‘Duncan Grant Painting’
Vanessa BELL
c.1920
50 x 40 cm
Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermartizburg

Two Vanessa Bell paintings of painters painting.

The first painting is from her Asheham House – Bloomsbury days. Virgina Woolf, Lytonn Strachey, Roger Fry, Meynard Keynes… Bloomsbury was a meeting of minds & personalities. Literary, social, artistic & economic questioning & creativity to create one of Britain’s most brilliant schools of painting . A sense of communal purpose… and a disffusion of Modernism into English speaking countries( Roger Fry acquired many avant-garde paintings for various New York museums in his role as advisor).
On or about December 1910, human character changed. – Virgina Woolf.
The second painting is witness to the great friendship between Grant & Bell. They felt free in each other’s company. They painted together. When we look at the exuberance of this ‘colourist’ style of painting, we must try & remember it in it’s Modernist context. Whilst such a style of painting may be relatively wide spread nowadays, when it was painted it was breakthrough stuff. More composed & assured than the french fauvists of 1907 but more vibrant, colourful & freer in handling than most post-cubist work elsewhere of the 1920’s
Rebels of either sex all the world over who in an any way are fighting for freedom of any kind – Frank Rutter, dedication to the pamphlet ‘post Impressionism: Revolution in Art’ 1910
-The flashing brillance…the pidgeon breast radiance  Virgina Woolf, writing in a letter about her sister’s , Vanessa Bell, use of colour.

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YOU ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE IN AN INTERNET COLLABORATIVE PROJECT….
Paintings of Painters Painting : Drawings of Draughts-Persons Drawing

All levels welcome, from genius to absolute beginner.

I thought it might be fun to gather together a few of the images from ‘Le Musée Imaginaire’ (André Malraux)