Vanessa Bell - Hardcover

Spalding, Frances

4.21

154 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297781626 ISBN 13: 9780297781622

Publisher: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983

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Vanessa Bell was a central figure within the Bloomsbury Group
and lent to it a stability and coherence it might otherwise have
lacked. A talented artist, she held sway with her acuity, integrity
and a sense of humour. Yet she remained inscrutable, glimpses
of her life only appearing through her sister, Virginia Woolf.� In this authorised biography, Frances Spalding draws upon a
mass of unpublished documents to reveal Vanessa Bell�€™s considerable
achievements, in both her art and her increasingly unorthodox
life. A sympathetic account is given of her marriage to
Clive Bell, her affair with Roger Fry and the complex nature of
her lasting relationship with Duncan Grant. It is a fitting tribute
to a woman of great paradox, wit and honesty.

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About the Author:

Frances Spalding is an art historian, critic and biographer, and a leading authority on Bloomsbury. She wrote an introduction to the subject, The Bloomsbury Group, for the National Portrait Gallery's Companion series, and has written biographies of Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, Gwen Raverat and of the poet Stevie Smith, as well as Vanessa Bell. For ten years she edited the Charleston Magazine. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor of Art History at Newcastle University, and was awarded a CBE in 2005.

Review:

Vanessa Bell emerges from Frances Spalding's sensitive and scholarly biography as an unexpectedly formidable figure...the central portrait is full and generous and it rings wonderfully true.

(The London Times 2016-03-17)

...a compelling life, one worth telling, unusual in its social and intellectual contrasts, formidable in its cast of characters, poignant in its alternations of happiness and despair.

(Spectator 2016-03-17)

"...an excellent biography: it could hardly be bettered... she has brought Vanessa Bell back to life...As a chronicle of human entanglements, and of the ways in which they were resolved, it wil have an enduring fascination...Vanessa Bell adds a new and indispensable dimension to our knowledge of Bloomsbury, and it is very much to be welcomed."

(Times Literary Supplement 2016-03-17)

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