Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury looks beyond the sex to the art – with mixed results
The Conversation · 13 Nov 2026

Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury looks beyond the sex to the art – with mixed results

The originality of painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant is often sensationalised, with the focus being on their unconventional sex lives as much as their avant-garde art. The pair were members of the informal Bloomsbury group, a loose constellation of gilded artists, writers and intellectuals centred around Gordon Square in central London. The group is coarsely remembered as much for its triangular romantic liaisons as its cultural contributions.


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