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BEYOND
BLOOMSBURY : LIFE, LOVE AND LEGACY
An exhibition at the Millenium Gallery, Sheffield, 25th
November 2021 to 12th February 2022
Reviewed by Jim Burns
Interest in Bloomsbury never seems to wane. Books, newspaper and
magazine articles, films, radio and TV programmes, all crop up
regularly. And visitors flock to Charleston, the country home of
Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. There
are also exhibitions, including the current one in Sheffield. I have
to admit that my first impulse on hearing about it was to wonder if
there is anything new to say or see about the “Bloomsberries”, a
name applied to Virginia Woolf,
Vanessa Bell, and the rest, by Molly McCarthy, wife of the writer
Desmond McCarthy. She was captured on canvas by Bell.
It was the word “beyond” which attracted my attention and persuaded
me that the exhibition might offer more than a round-up of the usual
suspects. They are all there, of course. Woolf and her husband
Leonard, Bell, Duncan Grant, Roger Fry, Dora Carrington……the list
goes on. And they are amply represented in paintings and
photographs. The National Portrait Gallery provided a number of
items from their extensive collection of material, and devotees of
Bloomsbury won’t be disappointed with what they find on display.
Of more interest, at least to me, were works by artists who, in one
way or another, might be said to have been on the fringes of
Bloomsbury. Matthew Smith, Edward Wadsworth, Nina Hamnett, William
Roberts, Wyndham Lewis, David Bomberg, and Mark Gertler.
Paintings and drawings by
them can be seen in the exhibition, and to my mind often overshadow
the visual work by “insider” Bloomsbury artists like Bell. Fry, and
Grant. I don’t dislike Vanessa Bell’s paintings, for example, but
they seem to lack individuality. You couldn’t say the same about
Matthew Smith’s colourful portrait of Angelica Garnett.
The presence of the artists I’ve referred to does indicate that
those in the close Bloomsbury group were meeting a variety of
painters. When the London Group was formed in 1913 it included
members of the Camden Town Group, Wyndham Lewis’s Vorticists, and
people like Bell, Grant, and Fry. There is a delightful illustration
by William Roberts which satirises the Bloomsbury contingent
as they appear to be debating something that
Cezanne did or said. Roberts
himself had been influenced by Cubism, and would have been aware of
Roger Fry’s important work in introducing French Post-Impressionist
art into Britain. But a little gentle mockery doesn’t go amiss.
There are examples of publications from the Hogarth Press and
products from the Omega Workshop. The display cases have interesting
items with accompanying details. There were some minor errors (two
different dates given for Vanessa Bell’s date-of-birth, for example)
and a curious mistake in relation to Molly McCarthy. A note about
her is accompanied by a copy of the American writer Mary McCarthy’s
Memories of a Catholic
Girlhood. Surely someone
should have spotted this? There appears to be no connection between
the two McCarthys.
Beyond Bloomsbury
is a generally worthwhile and informative exhibition. It will
obviously appeal to those fascinated by the legends of Bloomsbury –
the affairs, intrigues, and arguments – and the work, whether
written or visual, created by the likes of Virginia Woolf and
Vanessa Bell. But it also has the added value of widening the usual
picture to incorporate other artists, writers, and personalities.
Sadly there isn’t a catalogue for the exhibition, nor were there
postcards on sale. But there isn’t an entrance fee, just a request
to make a donation. Its next stop will be York from 4th
March to 5th June.
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