Exploring Charleston House: an expression of early 20th-century art
Released on 03/03/2023
[lively music]
My name's Lucy Hammond Giles.
I'm an interior decorator at Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler,
and we are here at Charleston,
the former home of the artist Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.
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Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant lived here
until Duncan died in 1978.
Although Vanessa had died somewhat earlier in 1961,
and they lived here for those nearly 60 years
with their friends and their relatives,
most of whom were part
of what was called the Bloomsbury Group,
which was a group of intellectuals who were united
by the belief that art was essential.
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This is the dining room at Charleston
and probably my favorite of the rooms.
There are all these wonderful layers.
There's inherited formal furniture.
There are these glorious red Omega Workshop chairs,
there's Vanessa's beautifully painted table
and there is the pottery
that Vanessa's younger son Quentin made,
this wonderful lampshade with its piercings
so when it's lit, the light sprinkles
like starlight when it's on.
The walls were painted by hand.
Duncan and Quentin did it together
just at the start of the Second World War.
Quentin said it was a way of coping with impending doom.
Have something to do.
They would've lined up the squares through stencils,
which wouldn't have lasted
'cause they just made them in paper
and then this wonderful confidence
to create these hand painted chevrons
feels like something we could all have a go at.
I first came to Charleston a really long time ago
and must have seen this curtain
and completely forgotten about it.
This piece of fabric was designed
by Duncan Grant in about 1931.
They've used it as a door curtain to go
from the dining room through to the kitchen
and they've added pieces of this quilted fabric.
If you can buy an antique textile
but it's not quite big enough,
we can add pieces to it to grow it to make it fit a space.
It's a lovely idea that the Bloomsbury Group was sitting
around this table having conversations
about art theories, economics, about politics, about sex,
all around Vanessa's beautiful table.
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The first thing that Vanessa Bell painted
at Charleston was under the window.
These fantastic flowers bringing the outside in.
The rest of the window's also painted
with forms that become like windows in themselves.
Although most of the walls were whitewashed,
these walls were later painted in this fantastic green,
which Duncan helped mix with his granddaughter.
This just was not normal in a Victorian house
but we're no longer in the Victorian age.
You can see the movement,
you can see the informality and it's just lovely.
The two marvelous things
about this fireplace are the very unbeautiful,
un-aesthetically pleasing fire brick creation by Roger Fry
who was a friend of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell's
with whom they had started the Omega Workshop.
And then this beautiful painting of the mantelpiece,
which was done later by Vanessa Bell.
It looks so spontaneous and yet a lot
of work would have been very carefully planned
because not only were Vanessa and Duncan fine artists,
but they were also interior decorators.
While Vanessa had painted underneath the window,
Duncan painted the back of the door.
It's significantly more abstracted
with more geometric forms, reducing realism
for more this idea of significant form,
which was something Clive Bell, Vanessa's husband,
wrote about in his art criticism.
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This is the garden room.
We've got Duncan's wonderful ladies.
It's a very good example of make good and mend,
and this circle would've been a mirror, but it was broken
by Vanessa's son Quentin when he was holding a candle
and the heat smashed the glass.
In the same way, they were using bits
of old fabric to change plain chairs.
They were very good at making do and mending.
This lamp is fantastic.
Apparently, it was once telegraph pole
and it had been painted to be this fantastic geometric plant
with a pattern of literally wrong shaped shade
on the top of it.
These curtains are fantastic.
With a different pelmet, it's lovely.
It's this idea
of bringing together different pieces of fabric.
They don't necessarily have to go together
but there is a sympathy to them.
I love the idea of Vanessa sitting in her chair, knitting,
falling asleep occasionally, waking up, chatting.
And opposite is this radiator case
and she didn't like the look of the radiator,
so she made a macrame cover for it.
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This is Vanessa's bedroom
and the walls are actually quite plain.
Often it's the woodwork that was painted.
So we have cabinet that Vanessa did
and a cabinet that Angelica,
Vanessa and Duncan's daughter painted.
Interestingly, Vanessa's work is a little bit more organized
and well laid out, whereas Angelica's is incredible.
It's much darker and slightly more claustrophobic.
There is a fantastic mirror over her basin,
which was Duncan's design.
His mother, Ethel did the needle point work on it
and this collaboration of artists
in this environment was always encouraged
and there're examples of it everywhere.
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This room is Duncan's studio
and was designed a bit later in 1925
and built very cheaply on top of what was a chicken run.
You can see the marks
of the rain and the damp, that pattern of age.
The north light is incredible here.
So they've got the high ceilings
and as such, they could fit in this old piece
of furniture which had once belonged to Thackery.
We are now very used to seeing a mixture
of what was called high and low furniture,
so very ornate, valuable and formal pieces
of furniture combined with junk shop finds.
I particularly love this piece of spotty fabric.
It's so different to everything else in its brightness.
It's rayon and it hasn't faded
whereas everything else is gently mellowed
and sort of remained in its 1950s incarnation.
Duncan also painted these wonderful characters
holding up the mantelpiece
and they almost feel like they're keeping you company
so you could be very happily alone in this room for hours.
There are all sorts of wonderful ceramics
in Thackery's Cupboard.
Duncan and Vanessa were commissioned to design
and paint a series of plates.
They chose as their subject matter famous women.
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This room was originally Vanessa's bedroom
and Duncan painted it for her.
He painted the cockerel to wake her up
in the morning and Henry the dog to protect her at night.
The walls in this room feel very contemporary
and they're block dark color.
They're kind of a black
but they've got so much red and blue in them.
Such a wonderful place to have as a study,
which is what it ended up being
when Clive Bell moved in here in 1939.
[lively music]
This is Duncan's bedroom, which Vanessa painted for him,
a lovely continuation of the artistic dialogue
that was so important in their relationship.
There's a lovely sketch that Vanessa sent the letter
to Roger Fry of this elevation
with the doors painted with the flowers and the circles
and borders symmetrically arranged around this fireplace.
As a decorator, I'm always trying to bring this feeling
of layering into client's houses,
this feeling of history and collecting.
John Fowler always said,
you should have something a little bit off in a room.
And I think thing that's a bit out of keeping
these brilliant chairs,
they are bead work.
And even Clive Bell said to Duncan Grant,
You've gone too far this time.
[lively music]
When Vanessa and Duncan first moved here in 1916,
it was the end of the Victorian age.
By the time Duncan died, there had been two World Wars,
homosexuality was no longer illegal,
women had the vote and there was punk rock.
Things had changed.
And in the course of any house's lifetime, things change,
things evolve, and we have to adapt
and make them work for us.
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