Flowers
Vanessa Bell (Kensington 1879 – Firle 1961)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1951 (initialed and dated)
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
330 x 230 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Mottisfont, Hampshire
NT 769776
Caption
Vanessa Bell was at the centre of British avant-garde art in the early 20th century. Her first husband (the critic Clive Bell), her partner Duncan Grant and her sister (the writer Virginia Woolf) have all attracted more attention, but Vanessa Bell was important in her own right. She was one of the first artists in Britain to try a non-representational approach to painting. The flattened forms, bright colours and patterned surface of this painting of flowers signal Bell’s love of decorative surfaces. She was closely involved with Fry and Grant in the development of the Omega Workshops, which introduced a fresh sense of design and colour into everyday textiles and objects. Bell covered Charleston’s walls and furniture with vivid decoration, so that art was part of the very fabric of her life.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Flowers by Vanessa Bell (Kensington 1879 – Firle 1961), initialed VB 51 [1951].
Provenance
Presented by Derek Hill (1916 - 2000) through The National Art Collections Fund (Art Fund) 1996
Credit line
Mottisfont Abbey,The Derek Hill Collection (presented to the National Trust through the National Art-Collections Fund in 1996)
Makers and roles
Vanessa Bell (Kensington 1879 – Firle 1961), artist
References
Conroy, Rachel, Women Artists and Designers at the National Trust, 2025, pp. 200-203