Charleston Farmhouse Tour

I am a Friend of Charleston, the house where the painters Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, the art wing of the Bloomsbury Group, lived in Sussex. In last years AGM we bought a tour of the house with Simon Watney, one of the leading writers on the Bloomsbury group whose most recent book is "Bloomsbury in Sussex". It had taken a while to arrange but on Saturday four of us gathered for our tour.

Although I know the house well already it was a real treat to go round with someone who had known the house when Duncan was still alive and had been instrumental in saving and conserving it. It was also good to focus on the paintings and decorative aspects of the house rather than the personalities. I had not known before how much of the decoration had been done quite soon after they moved in in 1916. It was good to have your eye drawn to paintings you might have missed on previous visits.

While there we also took the opportunity to view the small temporary exhibition which was on in the shop, 'Personages and Performers' by Patrick Burke. It displayed a selection of his recent work which combined figures and abstract elements.

We followed the whole experience with an excellent dinner back in Brighton to which Simon Watney and his partner came for much wine and Bloomsbury chat.

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