View of the Pond at Charleston, East Sussex
by Vanessa Bell
c.1919
Oil on canvas, 79.8 x 84 cm
Collection: Museums Sheffield
About the Art
At the Royal Academy Schools Vanessa Bell was taught by and admired the work of John Singer Sargent. She was also greatly influenced by Whistler, and in the final pages of this letter to her friend Margery Snowdon she described the influence of his technique on her painting style.
Bell's first commissioned work was a portrait of Lady Robert Cecil. This was also the first work she ever exhibited, at the New Gallery, London, in 1905.
After her marriage in 1907, Bell continued to paint portraits, but with the birth of her son Julian in 1908, her paintings adopted more domestic themes such as still lifes and interiors
Vanessa Bell, 1879–1961, was a British painter and interior designer who established her reputation as part of the avant-garde Bloomsbury Group. Her most innovative works, which fused fine art and decorative design, show the influence of post-Impressionism, Matisse and Cubism.
Bell was the elder sister of writer Virginia Woolf. She was married to the art critic Clive Bell, with whom she had an open marriage, and had intimate relationships with the artist Duncan Grant and the critic and artist Roger Fry. In 1910, Fry organised the first Post-Impressionism exhibition in London. This made a strong, if brief, impact on Bell’s artistic development, and marked a milestone in the history of British taste.
In 1906, when Bell started to think of herself as an artist, she formed the Friday Club in order to create a place in London that was more favourable to painting. Vanessa was encouraged by the Post-Impressionist exhibitions organised by Roger Fry and she copied their bright colours and bold forms in her artworks. In 1914, she turned to abstraction.
Bell rejected the examples of Victorian narrative painting and rejected a discourse on the ideal and aberrant qualities of femininity. Some of Vanessa Bell’s works were related to her personal life.
Bell is one of the most celebrated painters of the Bloomsbury group. She exhibited in London and Paris during her lifetime, and has been praised for innovative works during her early maturity and for her contributions to design.
Charleston House, Firle, Sussex, where she and Grant lived, is perhaps her best known work. Bell and Grant decorated the interior of the farmhouse in the bold signature style of the Omega Workshops, a design group founded by Fry in 1913.
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Create something using an art bead that fits within our monthly theme. We post the art to be used as your inspiration to create. This challenge is open to jewelry-makers, fiber artists, collage artist, etc. The art bead can be created by you or someone else. The challenge is to inspire those who use art beads and to see all the different ways art beads can be incorporated into your handiwork.
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Monthly Challenge Recap
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• One prize winner will be selected at random from all pictures posted on the
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Perfect Pairings :: Designer + Art Bead Artist
• Formerly the Featured Designer of the Week, our new Perfect Pairings will focus on both the jewelry designer and the art bead artist.
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What is an Art Bead?
An art bead is a bead, charm, button or finding made by an independent artist. Art beads are the vision and handiwork of an individual artist. You can read more about art beads
here.
***A bead that is handmade is not necessarily an art bead. Hill Tribe Silver, Kazuri ceramic beads or lampwork beads made in factories are examples of handmade beads that are not considered art beads.
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