Modernism in Intimate Gestures: The Bloomsbury Group at Rollins Museum of Art

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On the back of a folded letter fragment, Duncan Grant sketched his friend Vanessa Bell. The small pencil drawing is both intimate and radical: her mask-like features, low bun, and beaded necklace are strikingly modern.

To understand the impact of this portrait, we can begin with the letterhead address on its verso. After the death of their father in 1904, the Stephen sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf moved to 46 Gordon Square, in London’s Bloomsbury district. This house would soon become a hub for the circle of artists, writers, and thinkers whose conversations would shape the course of twentieth-century art and literature.

Over a hundred years later, this drawing serves as a record of the bold experimentation that defined the Bloomsbury Group and highlights a creative dialogue that would shape the look and feel of modern British art.

From her living room, Bell launched the Friday Club, an exhibiting society that brought young artists together for discussion and critique and played a crucial role in fostering the creative environment of the Bloomsbury Group. It was here, in 1905, that Bell met Duncan Grant, beginning a creative and intimate partnership that would last throughout their lives.

Verso, Letter from Vanessa Bell to Duncan Grant, ca. 1911-14

One of the earliest portraits of Bell by Grant, this drawing captures the start of that relationship, years before their romance began in 1913. Drawn directly on the back of one of her many letters from Gordon Square, it captures the energy of those formative years following Roger Fry’s 1910 and 1912 Post-Impressionist exhibitions in London that introduced the British public to French artists like Cézanne, Manet, and Matisse.

Grant’s simplified geometry and decorative linearity anticipate his later, celebrated paintings while the informality of the medium reminds us that modernism was a process of intimate, personal gestures.

Portrait of a Movement: A New Approach to the Bloomsbury Group at the Rollins Museum of Art situates this drawing within a broader re-examination of the museum’s Bloomsbury collection. Debuting a significant painting by Roger Fry of Vanessa Bell, the exhibition introduces new scholarship by leading Bloomsbury expert Dr. Wendy Hitchmough, offering fresh insights into Bell, Grant, Fry, and their circle.

Installation views Portrait of a Movement: A New Approach to the Bloomsbury Group September 13, 2025 –May 10, 2026. Photo by: Cechman’s Photography

Newly acquired woodcuts by Roger Fry, hand-printed by Virginia and Leonard Woolf at Hogarth Press, broaden the scope of the collection and emphasize the multidisciplinary modernisms of the group. Visitors can delve deeper into the Bloomsbury Group with archival BBC recordings bringing the actual voices of Bell, Grant, and Leonard Woolf into the gallery.

A true-to-scale reproduction of Bell and Grant’s Pamela furnishing fabric, collaboratively created for the artist-led design cooperative Omega Workshops, illustrates the visual impact of their modernist work. A bookshelf featuring Vanessa Bell’s published letters allows visitors to read about the Bloomsbury figures in their own words.

As a teaching museum, the Rollins Museum of Art aims not only to exhibit works but also to expand and reinterpret what we know about them. Portrait of a Movement embodies that mission by placing objects in dialogue with both their early twentieth-century contexts and contemporary perspectives. The exhibition underscores the enduring relevance of the Bloomsbury Group, whose challenge to conventions and new ideas about art, sexuality, pacifism, and feminism continues to inspire over a century later.

Portrait of a Movement: A New Approach to the Bloomsbury Group is on view at the RMA through May 2026. The exhibition was co-curated by Moriah Russo, Curatorial Assistant, and Dr. Gisela Carbonell, Curator.

As part of the programming for Portrait of a Movement, Dr. Wendy Hitchmough, author of Vanessa Bell: The Life and Art of a Bloomsbury Radical , will present a free, public lecture focused on centering Bell as a key figure in the development of modernism at RMA on Tuesday, November 18 at 6 p.m. Join Moriah Russo for an exhibition tour on November 14 at 11 a.m.

Visit Rollins Museum of Art Tuesday-Sunday. Admission is free.

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