Duncan Grant
It’s a wonder Duncan Grant (1885-1978) got any work in his studio done at all with such a … colourful … personal life! His portfolio was vast; not only did he produce seventy years worth of works on canvas and paper, but his interiors at Charleston in Sussex provide a marvellous visual legacy.
Duncan Grant’s artistic styles flowed and changed throughout his life in response to who he met (he was a follower of Picasso as early at 1910) and how he lived and loved. From a brutal avant-garde abstraction in his youth, to a mellower and more rational middle, Grant finally returned to the playfulness of unreal shapes and colours in his last years. The pattern seems to mirror Grant’s own long life.
His years spent in artistic – and romantic – partnership with Vanessa Bell produced a prolific amount of collaborative furniture, pottery and textiles. We can look on his works on canvas and paper though as a far more personal expression of his modern tastes, his sexuality and his skill.
