23 September 2026

Halcyon Days

The studio was the heart of Charleston, the home shared by painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Ahead of a major project that will see the studio recreated as the centrepiece of a forthcoming exhibition at Tate Britain, Bell’s granddaughter reflects on the idyllic summers she spent at the house as a child, and the freedom and delight it inspired

Photographs taken by Polly Brown at Charleston, East Sussex for Tate Etc., July 2026. Virginia Nicholson remembers her childhood visits there as ‘one long halcyon summer filled with butterflies and flowers in the garden.’

'The best times of my life as a child were spent at Charleston and it still reminds me of all the things I think are important in houses – places to hide, places to escape to; colour, life, muddle; a sense of beauty where everything, discrepant objects, are all drawn together into a whole ... It speaks of who my family were as people, who they were as artists, and the life that they made together in this wonderful home'

Every nook, cabinet and inch of shelf space in the studio is filled with a lively disorder of ceramics, textiles, art materials, books, prints, photographs and other objects, either picked up on Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s travels or gifted to them. Most of the paintings in the house were painted by Bell and Grant, among others they bought or were given. Built in 1925, the studio was initially shared by both artists; Bell later adapted an attic room to use as her work space, while Grant continued to use the studio until his death in 1978.

© 2026 Estate of Vanessa Bell. All rights reserved, DACS © 2026 Estate of Duncan Grant. All rights reserved, DACS. Photos © Polly Brown

‘The whole house tells a story. It still contains many of the paintings and things that Vanessa and Duncan had bought or been given by friends over the years ... They wanted to cover every surface throughout Charleston and to create these effects that brought them joy in the space where their family lived … I think it was liberating – you get this sense of lack of inhibition and playfulness.’

A view from the studio into Bell’s bedroom. Beside the door hangs a portrait by Grant of Bell’s brother, Adrian Stephen, while above it is a copy of a painting by Piero di Cosimo. Nearby, an 18th-century Italian chest of drawers bears a plaster bust of Bell’s sister, Virginia Woolf.

The studio’s fire surround was painted by Grant around 1932, while Bell decorated the tiles behind the stove in the late 1920s. The mantelpiece is laden with keepsakes, family photographs and two drawings made by Virginia Nicholson when she was about five years old.

‘Why should art be in frames? Why can’t it jump out and be on the things you live with and use and sit on? These are people who you feel were at peace with the material world around them and who wanted to tell you simply what they were seeing – to communicate in a very, very direct way. Their work has no grand theory, no great reams of critique behind it, but it is pure joy.'

Bell and Grant treated the whole of Charleston as a canvas. They painted the walls with colourful murals, stencils and abstract patterns that extended onto the furniture. A plaster cast of ears taken from Michelangelo’s David hangs by the studio entrance.

Several mirrors reflect light around the studio and were a useful painting tool. This one, and the chaise longue beneath it, previously belonged to Walter Sickert, who left them in his London studio at 8 Fitzroy Street, which Grant took over around 1920.

^{Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury}^{, 12 November 2026 – 11 April 2027 Virginia Nicholson is an author and President of the Charleston Trust. Her words are taken from a recent interview with Thomas Kennedy, Curator of Modern British Art at Tate Britain, included in the exhibition book,} ^{Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury}^{, published by Tate Publishing.}

^{Supported by Kim Jones, Vice President of the Charleston Trust. Further support from Farrow & Ball. With additional support from the Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant Exhibition Supporters Circle, Tate Patrons, Tate Members and Tate Americas Foundation. The exhibition is organised by Tate Britain in collaboration with Charleston.}