Curating Liberation: A Reflection upon Life, Love, and Art at Charleston House
In an opening scene of the BBC’s Life in Squares, a drama based on the lives of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, two sisters remove their corsets and throw them violently out of the window. An act that signals a shedding of formality and restrictive codes, so often attributed to the Victorian period, displays the courage and radical disposition of two women determined to live differently.
Both pivotal figures of the British Modernist movement, their revolutionary lives often resided at Charleston House, the rural home of artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant in Lewes, Sussex. Existing down a private lane, Charleston provided the seclusion and freedom for this experimental couple. Their openness and freedoms often extended to their relationships with others, with Duncan Grant’s lover David Garnett remaining resident during the early years at the farmhouse. This radical spirit subsequently resulted in Charleston becoming a sanctuary for the Bloomsbury group, a collective of writers, artists, and philosophers who sought to look upon society from new and radical angles.
After arriving in 1916, the farmhouse soon became a living canvas. Enlivened by a bold and unconventional colour palette, life and art collide in beautiful harmony with every wall and surface inscribed by its inhabitants. Circular patterns, still life and the body are a permanent motif of the eclectic curation of ceramics, textiles, and paintings throughout the home, a powerful commentary on the boundlessness of human expression. Paintings that show familial love, tenderness, and intimacy drive the energy that prevails throughout the home, a thread that maintained unity amidst a group of people with often fluid and complicated relationships.
The shared studio of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant is perhaps the most striking and eagerly awaited room of the home (it is aptly located as the final room of the tour). Filled with light and vibrancy, never had Bell and Grant’s wash of opaque colour on the walls appeared so visibly striking. I find myself drawn to the earthy wash of colour on the right wall of the studio texturized by visible marks and lines, a manmade and extremely physical form of storytelling.
The liberation of humble mark making is beautifully juxtaposed with the playful formality of the ‘The Famous Women Dinner Service’, a collection of fifty portrait plates commissioned by Kenneth Clark. Designed by Bell and Grant, the set features women of literature, art and stature such as Charlotte Brontë, Mary Queen of Scots, and Greta Garbo. The fertility of this creative space is therefore watched over by a strong and commanding female gaze.
Life appears remarkably uncomplicated when viewed through the lens of Charleston. A commitment to nature, love, feeling, and expression fills each space with a life force that celebrates liberation and progression. Today the house has been carefully preserved and faithfully remains committed to providing a space for contemporary conversations about gender and sexuality - a spectacle for the eye and mind.