Conversation Piece

I am in love with this itty bitty painting! In this most comfortable of rooms, chock full of art and books but with adequate seating, pleasant conversation flows. Do you suppose they are sensibly chattering about weather? Or debating the merits of life dedicated to the pursuit of arts?

Vanessa Bell, Conversation Piece 1912 oil
Source

The piece is by Vanessa Bell,Virginia Woolf's sister and a talented artist in her own right. BBC has a treasure trove of art - here is a slideshow of Vanessa Bell's works.

Wednesday: Virginia by Rodger Fry

I haven't posted a Wednesday painting in some weeks so perhaps it is time. The Bloomsbury Group still captures imagination today, a bohemian Olympus of sorts. Artists Rodger Fry by all accounts had a complicated life and was close to both Vanessa Bell and her sister Virginia Woolf. So behold a portrait of Virginia by Rodger Fry.  He painted her likeness and she wrote his biography.

Virginia Woolf by Rodger Eliot Fry

Copyright:  © Bridgeman Art Library / On Loan to Leeds Museums and Galleries (City Art Gallery)

Virginia's Sister

Virginia Woolf's older sister, Vanessa Bell, was a talented artist and among Bloomsbury Group's founders. Bloomsbury group draws one like a bohemian Camelot, it still feels oh-so-very modern more than a century later.  What it must have been like to be in the room with these artistic intellectuals, a product of their time?

This portrait by Vanessa Bell (currently at Tate) is stare-worthy. The colors and the rendering of the face are lovely and somehow cozy, like tweed and wool.

Helen Dudley by Vanessa Bell (1915ish) - currently at the Tate