Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) was one of the foremost British painters of the early twentieth century. She and her sister, the writer Virginia Woolf, were prominent members of the Bloomsbury Group, along with the painter Duncan Grant, the painter and critic Roger Fry, and the critic Clive Bell, whom Vanessa married in 1907.

The Bloomsbury artists felt that early twentieth century British culture was too parochial and insular. They wanted to renew it by encouraging links with avant-garde developments in Europe. Like many artists, Bell was influenced by the modern art shown at the two ‘Post-Impressionist’ exhibitions which Roger Fry and Clive Bell organised in London in 1910 and 1912. She described their effect on her as ‘a sudden liberation’.

Bell’s subjects ranged from still lives and large-scale figure compositions to intimate conversation pieces and landscapes, but she also produced abstract paintings and collages, as well as designs for book covers and furniture.

For some time, Bell has been best known for her later work, often seen as conservative. This has obscured the ground-breaking nature of her early work. Recently attention has turned to her abstract paintings of around 1914 which are now known as some of the earliest in modern European art.

This display has been devised by curator Ben Tufnell

BP British Art Displays 1500-2005