Collection: Charleston

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  Charleston, a vernacular Sussex farmhouse, was ‘discovered’ by Leonard and Virginia Woolf and became the country home of Virginia Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell, her husband Clive Bell and Duncan Grant from 1916 until Vanessa Bell’s death in 1961, Clive Bell’s death in 1964 and Grant’s death in 1978. The two artists decorated the house deploying the same approach that they had pioneered at the Omega Workshops. For the next fifty years they continued to embellish it and collect around them fine and decorative art that reflected their life, work and friendships.

  Charleston was frequently visited by all the members of the Bloomsbury circle as well as many major figures of the time including T.S. Eliot, Benjamin Britten and Ethel Smyth.

  Significance

  The Bloomsbury group is probably Britain’s most significant cultural grouping of the 20th century. The collection of writers, artists and intellectuals have a worldwide reputation and in Virginia Woolf and John Maynard Keynes the group included two members widely held to be geniuses. As a group of friends, with no formal philosophy, their work is difficult to encapsulate. They were strongly influenced by the writings of the philosopher G.E. Moore. Though they differed among themselves, there was a common emphasis on honesty in personal relationships, and on tolerance, reason, freedom of speech, non-violence, equality, friendship and internationalism. The circle included the innovative biographer Lytton Strachey, the modernist writer Virginia Woolf, the socialist thinker and activist Leonard Woolf, the beguiling critic Desmond MacCarthy, the 20th century’s most important economist John Maynard Keynes and the art critics Roger Fry and Clive Bell.

  In the visual arts Clive Bell and Roger Fry were influential critics. Fry organised two Post-Impressionist exhibitions in London in 1910 and 1912 and both Fry and Bell promoted progressive French art. The exhibitions had a significant influence on the art of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. This, and their experiments with abstraction (from as early as 1912), placed them in the vanguard of 20th century art. In 1913 Fry established the Omega Workshops with Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant as co-directors. Omega applied the Post-Impressionist style to domestic decoration and furnishing.

  In 1916, during the First World War, Vanessa Bell, her two sons and Duncan Grant and his boyfriend David Garnett moved to Charleston. Bell and Grant soon set about redecorating the rooms. Charleston is the only complete surviving example of their decorative interiors, and is one of the most important artists’ houses in the world. In addition, it contains a rich collection of paintings and designs by Grant and Bell, and of paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture and objects by artists such as Picasso, Derain, Sickert, Delacroix and others whose work they admired.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2024

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Clive Bell occupied Charleston as tenants of the Firle Estate from 1916 until their respective deaths in 1961, 1964 and 1978. In 1981 the freehold for Charleston was purchased by The Charleston Trust.

  The Charleston Trust was founded to restore and preserve Charleston and to provide public access to the house. It became a registered charity in 1981. The house opened to the public in 1986 after extensive restoration and conservation.

  The collection comprises the house, its decorative interiors, contents, and permanent elements within the garden including walls, ponds, mosaics, and sculpture. Most of the contents and decorations of Charleston survived in situ up to the time of Duncan Grant’s death in 1978, after which various bequests somewhat depleted the collection. What remained was donated to the newly formed Trust by Vanessa Bell’s surviving children, Angelica Garnett and Quentin Bell. Additional gifts of family photographs and of studies and works on paper were made by Anne Olivier Bell in 2006 and by Angelica Garnett in 2008. With the exception of a small number of loaned works of art, the Charleston Trust owns the entire collection. The Trust continues to acquire relevant works for its collection which comply with the criteria of its collecting policy.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: 2024

  Licence: CC BY-NC