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European Art
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- Sale 1175
Live
| Chicago
May 18 | 11:00 AM EDT
Live
| Chicago
Sale 1175
| Chicago
| Chicago
Estimate$5,000 – $7,000
Provenance:
The Artist's Estate
Anthony d'Offay, London
Purchased from the above, 1983
Exhibited:
New York, Davis & Long, in association with Anthony d'Offay, Ltd., Vanessa Bell: A Retrospective Exhibition, April 18 - May 24, 1980, p. 31, no. 43
Vanessa Bell was one of the most celebrated painters of the Bloomsbury Group, an association of British writers, intellectuals, philosophers, and artists that formed in the early 20th century. The group included her sister, Virginia Woolf, as well as E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, and Lytton Strachey. During her lifetime, Bell exhibited in London and Paris and was praised for her work and designs that rejected Victorian strictures of narrative painting, and instead embraced bright colors and bold forms.
In addition to her painting, Bell collaborated with Duncan Grant, a fellow Bloomsbury Group artist, to create set designs for theatrical and dance productions. On the recommendation of Grant, in 1932, Bell was asked to design the set for High Yellow. Produced for the Camargo Society, the ballet is set to jazz music and takes place on a tropical island. The present work, a curtain design for the ballet, reveals the artist's innovative use of flat fields of bold shapes done in vibrant hues to create a lively and vivid image. In a letter to Roger Fry, Bell described how much she enjoyed this new challenge of creating a tropical scene complete with palms, boats, and a cocktail bar. Although she modestly described her set as being “quite successful,” she was invited to do several more in subsequent years.
Framed: 27 x 28 inches.
Sheet: 22 x 27 inches.
Sheet is mounted to back mat with hinging tape attached to two pieces of masking tape along upper right and left corner edges; uneven toning around image perimeter; surface soiling, dirt, foxing throughout margins; creases throughout margins, primarily located in center left, and one small crease in the center right of image; pinpoint holes in upper and lower left corners; scattered bumps to edges, with one small loss along lower right edge; areas of skinning to the top layer of paper in scattered areas along the margin edges. Additional images available upon request.
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Madalina Lazen
VP Head of Department, Old Masters & 19th Century European Art
