The Intimate Still Lives of Vanessa Bell

The painting, now known as Iceland Poppies, seems to point to the hands behind the still life. The whole image is about pause, emphasized by the poppies with their narcotic properties, and of course, the poison. When I was in front of the painting, I wondered not what to anticipate (i.e. is someone getting poisoned?), but what had come before. When did Bell buy an antique pharmacist’s jar? Who arranged the table? Were the poppies plucked from the garden or purchased from the florist? 

Until recently, it has been somewhat difficult to ask any questions about Bell’s work. The artist is primarily remembered for being a member of the Bloomsbury Group, more so than what she produced within it. Outside of Bell’s home and studio in Charleston, one seldom encounters her paintings, much less her textiles, ceramics, or furnishings. Her work has been displayed mostly in connection to her sister, Virginia Woolf, for whom she designed book covers. 

Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour, which recently closed at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, provided a much-needed overview of the artist’s oeuvre. The co-curators, Fay Blanchard and Anthony Spira, contextualized her work, tactfully avoiding tropes related to the “woman artist.” Just as importantly, the exhibition allowed us to see the full range of Bell’s art.  

Vanessa Bell (née Stephen) was born in 1879 to a prominent literary family. She grew up in her family’s Victorian cultural orbit, spending time among artists, such as the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. In 1896, she began formal studies in painting, but when her mother died the next year, Bell assumed the primary caretaking role in the household. 

During this period, she handled her father’s various demands, temporarily isolating her from her own ambitions. Then, in 1904, she moved with her siblings to Bloomsbury. In contrast to their conservative upbringing, as her brother, Thoby, would summarize, “Everything was going to be new, everything was going to be different. Everything was on trial.” 

From early on, Bell took this questioning spirit to her work. She engaged with different historical and contemporary movements, confidently sliding between styles. In the first gallery, Iceland Poppies hung beside small-scale landscapes and portraits of Bell’s family members. A portrait of her father (1902-3) is somewhat imposing. He recedes into the background, subtly illuminated like a Rembrandt painting. 

Her other subjects feel more impressionistic. A sketchy oil painting from 1911-12 shows Virginia Woolf in fancy dress. Woolf is impossible to identify, not because of the costume, but due to the loose strokes that skim her figure. Bell smudged out the face, as she often did in her portraits, making Woolf’s posture the central focus.   

The subsequent galleries tracked her commitment to abstraction and experimentation, before she returned to more representational styles. Alongside Duncan Grant and Roger Fry, Bell headed the Omega Workshops which offered a range of rugs and household items designed with that “Bloomsbury Look.” These objects shatter the boundary between fine and applied arts; the same palettes and observations appear across media. Bell’s rug designs closely parallel her most abstract paintings, for example. The rugs and the paintings prioritize form, collaging color into composition. Bell was deeply attuned to the “hand” behind these different design objects, which were the lifeblood of her home. 

Beyond the visual resonances between them, her home and art together highlight the labor that undergirds domesticity. If Iceland Poppies poses questions about the behind-the-scenes of the still life, Nursery Tea (1912) presents some answers. 

The large, absorbing painting depicts two nursemaids taking tea with Bell’s sons, Quentin and Julian. It is an exceedingly tense image, at once raw and suppressed. The two children appear antsy, agitatedly awaiting their tea. One faceless nursemaid prepares to distribute a teatime treat. The other nursemaid’s attentive glance hovers over Quentin. 

Bell’s presence behind the easel produces some of the painting’s tension. She subverts the tropes of motherhood, stroke by stroke, allowing for an interchangeability between the adults in the room. These faceless nursemaids could be her. Here, they crucially are not. Bell slows down teatime to show how all the women cooperate to produce the nursery tea and Nursery Tea, drawing attention to both the artist and the caretaker’s roles in arranging everyday life. On another day, that very table may have been set for a still life.