Duncan Grant 1885-1978

Having been a key figure in the vanguard of French-influenced Post-Impressionism championed by Roger Fry in the years before WWI, Grant, along with Vanessa Bell moved away from the avant-garde in the 1920s, preferring instead to work within a quieter and more highly personal world centred around their home at Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex. Within this body of work, their immediate world becomes the defining motif, be that a still life, or equally a view of the gardens or a portrait of Vanessa. The apparent simplicity and informality of these works is deceptive, with several elements being brought into play to create images which retain their freshness and spontaneity decades after their creation.

More often than not using blooms from their own garden, Grant and Bell’s still life paintings are superficially similar, but in Grant’s painting there is often a joy in the subject which shines forth.