Relationships between members of the Bloomsbury Group were notoriously fluid, characterized by a disdain for what they regarded as bourgeois notions of fidelity, permanence, or exclusivity. When Duncan Grant painted this portrait of Vanessa Bell they had become partners and were living together at Eleanor, a small house on the West Sussex coast. Bell’s marriage to the critic Clive Bell had recently failed, and she was hoping to start a new relationship with Grant, who had previously been attached to a number of different male members of the group and was then falling for the young writer David Garnett. The stress of the war further strained the atmosphere, although the fatigue in Bell’s face may also be explained by the fact that she fell asleep during sittings. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
