Stephanie G. Mathis Charleston is an English farmhouse located in East Sussex. It was once the gathering place of the Bloomsbury Group, a group of British writers, artists, and thinkers from the early 20th century, including Virginia Woolf and Roger Fry.
Charleston Trust has maintained the house since 1980. It is now preserved as a museum. The charity will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2030. Officials have announced an ambitious multi-year project called ” 50 for 50.”
In a press release, the museum said: “We will be searching for 50 of Bloomsbury Group’s most important works that are still in private collections.”
The project will be launched at the London Art Fair this month, where artworks from the collection – some newly acquired – are on display. Holly Black, Artnet, told Sarah Monk that the museum’s collection includes “work by some of Britain’s most important modern artists from the early 20th Century.” “Charleston has a rich history that is as colorful as the hand-painted wallpapers and furniture you see around you. This history resonates with what we want to achieve with the fair as a place where artists, writers, and thinkers can come together to celebrate art and ideas.
In 1916, the artists Duncan Grant (Wolf’s brother) and Vanessa Bell moved to Charleston. Bell’s children shared the house, Grant’s lover David Garnett, and Bell. Grant and Garnett, both conscientious objectors of World War I, were able to avoid conscription through agricultural work by moving to the farmhouse.
The bohemian paradise was decorated in a colorful, eclectic style. It included a walled, flower-filled garden and gravel paths. Members of the Bloomsbury Group lived in this environment free of Victorian social norms, rejecting gender, monogamy, and other traditional ideas.
They had money and privilege but rebelled against Victorian forefathers. Harriet Sherwood, the Guardian, says that they imagined society differently and made revolutions in culture and art. “A century later, they still inspire people to think society can be different – whether artistically or sexually or politically.”
Hepburn hopes that the “50 for 50%” initiative inspires those who have a Bloomsbury piece in their home to donate it to the museum. It has acquired about a dozen works, including Bell’s The Cloak(1922), which a museum visitor donated.
Hepburn told Artnet that “the best discoveries are people who have paintings in their family for generations but they have never been displayed publicly or reproduced in a book.”
London Art Fair includes The Coat, paintings of Grant, Fry, and Simon Bussy, and The Cloak.
Hepburn told the Guardian Bloomsbury’s works are valuable, and when they are put up for auction, “they will be highly sought-after, well beyond the means a small charity can afford.” He is optimistic, though, that more people will donate their artwork. The project may also help to locate lost works.
Hepburn adds, “There are… many paintings we don’t even know where they are.” There are still many extraordinary paintings to be found.
