Page 32Page 33
Page 32
Roger Fry at the Grafton Galleries in 1910, Bell would soon be showing with these same artists – Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Denis, Gauguin and others – in the second Post-Impressionist exhibition of 1912, in which she displayed several paintings (albeit as ‘Mrs Bell’), confi dently presenting them alongside those of her Continental peers. But responding to all these infl uences, and digesting them, Bell’s touch was always her own: scruffy, down to earth, full of a bushy-tailed, tactile energy and pleasure in making her mark – both literally and fi guratively. Distinctive, too, is her treatment of the female subjects, which she renders as forceful, sometimes monumental, and brimming with modern agency. All of this makes Bell seem very contemporary to us today, as we continue to struggle to come to terms with shifting gender identities, nationalist xenophobia and mankind’s capacity for inhumanity. To underscore Bell’s contemporary relevance further, we have paired her photograph albums (generously loaned to us from Tate archives) with contemporary photographs by the American rock musician, writer and artist Patti Smith in a related small exhibition titled Legacy, which runs concurrently at the gallery.In 2003, Smith was invited to Bell’s Sussex home, Charleston, as an artist-in-residence, and she quickly fell in love with the place and the ghosts of its past inhabitants – particularly Bell and Grant. She discovered a sense of Left: Vanessa Bell, On the Steps of Santa Maria Salute, Venice, 1948, oil on canvas, 49 x 37cmAbove: Vanessa Bell, Landscape with Haystack, Asheham, 1912, oil on canvas, board, 60 x 66cmImages: Private Collection, UK © The Estate of Vanessa Bell, courtesy of Henrietta Garnett. Photo credit: The Bloomsbury Workshop; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts. Purchased with the gift of Anne Holden Kieckhefer class of 1952, in honour of Ruth Chandler Holden, class of 1926. © The Estate of Vanessa Bell, courtesy of Henrietta Garnett.kinship with their devotion to the creative life, but also with their way of remaking domestic space as a work of art in its own right. Further expeditions to nearby Monk’s House in Rodmell, the former home of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, deepened Smith’s fascination, and she would travel on to related sites around the UK where the memory of beloved artists and writers still linger. In displaying these works, Legacy, like Vanessa Bell, champions the values of artistic and personal freedom and open-mindedness, values which seem as besieged today as they were a century ago. ■VISITOR INFORMATIONVanessa Bell (1879–1961)Until June 4, 2017Dulwich Picture GalleryAddress: Gallery Road, London, SE21 7ADwww.dulwichpicturegallery.org.ukOpen: Tuesday–Sunday and Bank Holiday Mondays, 10am–5pmAdmission: £14/£13 senior citizens/ £7 concessions Information for groups: Groups of ten-plus benefi t from reduced admission; guided tours of the permanent collection can be arranged. Prebooking essential.Facilities: Café, shop, step-free access, disabled parking32 NADFAS REVIEW / SPRING 2017 www.nadfas.org.ukVANESSA BELL