The Art of Bloomsbury

London: Tate Gallery, 1999. Softcover. Very Good/None. Softcover, 296 pages, illustrated in color and b&w. Wonderfully written and illustrated account of the work of the Bloomsbury artists, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry. Contains detailed chronologies of their lives. Catalogue entries on two hundred works, all illustrated in color, bring out the chief characteristics of Bloomsbury painting--domestic, contemplative, sensuous, and essentially pacific. These are seen in landscapes, portraits, and still lifes set in London, Sussex, and the South of France, as well as in the abstract painting and applied art that placed these artists at the forefront of the avant-garde before the First World War. Portraits of family and friends--from Virginia Woolf and Maynard Keynes to Aldous Huxley and Edith Sitwell--highlight the cultural and social setting of the group. Essays by leading scholars provide further insights into the works and the changing critical reaction to them, exploring friendships and relationships both within and outside of Bloomsbury, as well as the movement's wider social, economic, and political. Clean, bright copy. Record # 374259