Cathy's Art Diary

Delightful  display at Charleston Farmhouse showing the lovely portrait of Virginian Woolf by her sister Vanessa Bell on loan from the National Portrait Gallery. I’m very fond of this picture and it was lovely to see it in a new setting. The loan is part of a series by the National Portrait Gallery called Coming Home which sees 50 portraits of iconic individuals from the national collection travelling to the towns and cities most closely associated with their subjects. What a lovely idea and I’ll certainly look out for more of these. It was particularly nice that this was painted in 1912 as Asheham just a few miles from Charleston while Virginia was living there. It’s a tender, domestic picture yet in a modernist style with blocks of colour in the background and the wonderful orange chair outlining the figure. I think it shows the affection of one sister to another although I’m not sure I normally picture Virginia knitting in my mind. Closing 19 January 2020

Magical exhibition at Charleston Farmhouse marking 90 years since the publishing of Orlando and looking at its history and interpretation. Orlando was written by Virginian Woolf in homage to her lover Vita Sackville-West and plays with ideas of gender and time. It’s a book I love and know well. The show was a lovely blend of the history of the book and an exploration of its themes. I liked the fact that the show had borrowed items from Knole, the house which Vita loved but could not inherit and which features heavily in the book, including portraits which Virginia had used to illustrate the book. There were also numerous copies of the first edition used to show the illustrations. They also had the copy owned by Vita’s mother in which she had written a stream of vitriol against Virginia. There were immediate reactions to the book including a wonderful dinner service painted by Vanessa Bell with scenes from the book. I’d never seen this before as it is privately owned. I...

Fascinating talk at the National Portrait Gallery given by Virginia Nicholson, the great niece of Virginian Woolf, talking about the effect of having such an illustrious ancestor. The talk mainly looked at how Virginia Nicholson’s parents had written the first biography of Woolf and her mother had then gone on to edit the Woolf diaries. It was a wonderful tale of a massive piece of research and the effect this has on a family. I loved the description of her mother’s meticulous filing systems and of the takeover of one room with paper when the index of the biography was being compiled. I have often heard Virginian Nicholson speak at Charleston, as I am a friend there and all eventer at the literary festival there, but I was impressed at how open she was in this talk about growing up with this legacy. I found the talk quite moving.  

Fabulous exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery looking at the life and work of Virginian Woolf. I admit from the outset of this review that I am a huge fan of Virginian Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group so I was either going to love this show or be super critical! Luckily I loved it! I was unsure at first why it started with the bombing of Tavistock Square but when you got to the end you realized that the pictures taken in that house were a great overview of Virginia’s life and style and it meant the whole show came full circle. You felt you could have gone round again in a continuation of the story. Even though I have seen a lot of Bloomsbury material there was a lot in the show I’d never seen before even as book illustrations such as a Carte de Viste of Virginian in mourning in 1895. It was interesting to read who had loaned material and many items where you stood thinking “how did they get that” you realised the item had been lent by Mrs Quentin Bell, daughter in law...