MUSE
Vanessa Bell
Vanessa Bell 1879-1961 is more widely known for being the sister of Virginia Woolf, and her complicated relationships with Clive Bell and Duncan Grant, rather than her artistic life.
However, Bell was a pivotal player in the new artistic styles emerging at the beginning of the 20th century. She was one of the founders of the free thinking Bloomsbury group, whose main interests were developing ideas and lifestyles away from the rigid constraints of the time.
She embraced creative freedom through her paintings with her use of innovative colour, vibrant hues and abstract form. I love her unexpected colour usage, and the way her art traveled seamlessly into her life through living at Charleston. It was there she painted furniture and walls, alongside designing textiles, book covers and ceramics.
In her portrait of “Mrs St John Hutchinson” She uses acid greens which clash rather beautifully with electric blues, sitting on a background of mauves, such a great colour palette and so modern.
She has left us a body of work which I very much admire.
-Heti Gervis
Mrs St John Hutchinson 1915
Vanessa Bells colour palettes helped inspire our S/S23 collection
