Vanessa Bell British, 1879-1961

The daughter of the distinguished man of letters Sir Leslie Stephen and the sister of Virginia Woolf, she trained at the Royal Academy Schools unders Sir Arthur Cope and was an important member of the Bloomsbury Group. Greatly influenced by the modern French painters, she was represented in Roger Fry's Second Post-Impressionist exhibition in 1912. A painter in oils and watercolours of figure, landscape and still-life subjects - she also worked closely with Roger Fry and Duncan Grant at the Omega Workshops producing fabric designs, pottery and painted furniture. She collaborated with Grant on large scale decorative commissions, perhaps the best known being 'The Modern Music Room'. Like that of Duncan Grant her work showed a close kinship with the decorative aspects of Matisse and until the 1920s they were regarded as the leading British innovators in the realm of colour. From 1920 she exhibited regularly with the London Group and in 1905 she had formed her own exhibiting group - The Friday Club. Her first solo show was in 1922 at the Independent Gallery. With Duncan Grant and Keith Baynes she selected the 'Contemporary British Artists' Coronation exhibition at Agnew's and in 1943 she was represented in 'Robert Colquhoun and Notable British Artists' at the Lefevre Gallery. Memorial exhibitions were staged by the Adams Gallery in 1961, with a catalogue foreword by Dunoyer de Segonzac and by the arts Council in 1964. Her work is represented in public collections worldwide.