The Charleston Trust is currently launching its "50 for 50" initiative to seek out privately owned artworks made by renowned artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant from the famed Bloomsbury group ahead of the charity's 50th anniversary in 2030.
To commemorate the launch of this endeavor, the London Art Fair will roll out an exhibition featuring Bloomsbury art that has never been publicized before, starting on Jan. 17 until Jan. 24, according to a report by the Museums Association.
Charleston's Ensuing Six Year Art Initiative
This radical collective of creatives and intellectuals also included writers like Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, and EM Forster as well as the economist John Maynard Keynes, all of whom developed their works at East Sussex farmhouse formerly belonging to Bell.
The farmhouse and its furnishings have gone through conservation efforts and are currently being repurposed into a museum that currently houses twelve Bloomsbury works already secured by the charity organization.
Included in this collection, which will also be featured in the upcoming Art Fair, is the 1912 piece by Bell, "The Cloak; an architectural study by Grant; and a newly conserved, incredibly rare painting of London's famous Mansion House made by French painter Simon Bussy.
These paintings are just the beginning, however, as Charleston Trust director Nathaniel Hepburn says that they're scouring for "some of the most important museum-quality works that will create an internationally significant Bloomsbury collection."
He added that these pieces may be hanging on the wall of some private collector's estate, all of which were possibly handed down from generation to generation, and are artworks that the director is hoping would be returned to Charleston one day.
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Rarely-Seen Bloomsbury Works at the London Art Fair 2024
To be showcased in the imminent Art Fair is another of Bell's pieces, specifically the artist's 1934 portraiture of her sister Woolf at their family home in Tavistock Square, London.
Although the piece itself briefly became a part of a Paris exhibition in the same year, it has since been held privately in a collection up until it was recently donated to Charleston.
In addition, Roger Fry's portraiture of his Bloomsbury mate, Forster, will also be exhibited at the Art Fair alongside ceramics and furniture made by Fry's own company, Omega Workshops.
Featuring institutional pieces like the ones mentioned is something the London Art Fair has routinely done, with Charleston being the core contributor to the event's 2024 iteration.
In a statement, the Art Fair's director Sarah Monk shared that the Bloomsbury-centered institution has always been one of the primary candidates in terms of being featured in the annual event's spaces.
She explained: "As it was a place for celebrating art and ideas, there is a huge synergy with what we also look to create for our own visitors to the fair."
