Evoking comparison to Monet’s home in Giverny, for over half a century Charleston Farmhouse offered a boundless source of inspiration and material for its artist-occupants. This new exhibition of 32 paintings and artworks specifically focuses on how the Bloomsbury Group’s rural haven in the folds of the Sussex Downs became a compelling subject in itself.
Centring on Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) and Duncan Grant’s (1885 -1978) highly productive years of creativity between – and including – two world wars (1916-1945), this illuminating exhibition will demonstrate how the house, its visitors, the garden, the bordering farm – replete with pond, ancient barns, and animals – as well as the local church and manor house, was a seasonally evolving, artistic muse for over half a century.
From a dazzlingly avant-garde painted chest to depictions of food preparation in the kitchen, from some of the key family and friends to the household cat, Opussyquinusque, Charleston – The Bloomsbury Muse includes loans from the house itself as well as lesser-known paintings from private collections. It covers a richly broad range of genres by both artists including portraiture, still life, interior scenes, landscape, genre, applied decorative art and watercolour sketches.
