Vanessa Bell and Angelica Garnett (née Bell) as Mistress Millament in "The Way of the World"

'Angelica Garnett (née Bell) as Mistress Millament in "The Way of the World" '
(no date found); Government Art Collection

Honestly, I had never heard of painter and interior designer Vanessa Bell, born on 30 May 1879, but I read that she was the sister of Virginia Woolf so I thought it would be interesting to choose her for this post. I had a quick look at the images of her paintings and decided that I like them. Vanessa Bell was born into a well to do family and was educated by her parents at home. Like her sister Virginia, she was encouraged to develop her individual talent. She took drawing lessons and got admitted to the Royal Academy Schools where one of her tutors was John Singer Sargent. After her parents died, she moved with Virginia and their two brothers to Bloomsbury. Here they could entertain their own friends and started the Bloomsbury Group, a group of writers, artists and intellectuals. The portrait I chose is of Angelica Garnett, the daughter of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. I love the colours in this painting! Grant was a member of the Bloomsbury Group and a homosexual. Bell had an affair with him and subsequently a child. They pretended that Angela was Clive Bell's child, Vanessa's husband. They got away with the deceit until Angela was 19 years old. It sounds like a soap opera to me but there's more. Angela married David Garnett who was a former lover of her biological father Duncan, a fact that she was unaware of for some time. With so much drama, there's got to be a memoir and there is. It's titled 'Deceived with kindness' by Angela Garnett.