Duncan Grant

Summary of Duncan Grant

Duncan Grant's passion for the unrefined and expressive leanings of the Post-Impressionists (a painting style all but unknown to English audiences at that time) helped position him at the cutting-edge of British art in the early decades of the 20^th century. With a personal life as colorful as his canvases, Grant put his indelible stamp on early British modernism through his principal role within the influential Bloomsbury Group, and through its allied Omega Workshops, a commercial venture to which be brought flair and elegance to a range of interior designs and soft furnishings. In a career spanning 70 years, Grant produced a vast catalogue of paintings and drawings, and made notable excursions into textiles, pottery, and theater designs. Tales of his complicated romantic life, inevitably involving his life partner, fellow artist Vanessa Bell, and numerous gay lovers and associates, have become part of Grant's mythology, and are all but impossible to disentangle from readings of his art.

Accomplishments

• A leading light within a collective of artists, writers and intellectual who came together in London's Bloomsbury Square, Grant's paintings signalled a period of radical experimentation in British art. As one of the "privileged bohemians" (as the Bloomsbury Group were sometimes known), Grant's expressive style introduced a new spirit of energy and optimism to early 20^th century British culture.
• Grant and his fellow Bloomsbury members aligned themselves with continental Europe in all its stylistic and modish shades. His thrilling portraits and landscapes fully accentuated the colorful and spontaneous affectations of the avant-garde, while Grant and his Bloomsbury fellows took to the vogue for sexual liberation with a zestful enthusiasm. As the renowned American poet and writer, Dorothy Parker said of the Group, "they lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles".
• Grant was one of the creative directors of the Omega Workshops. Rivalling the Arts and Crafts movement, its aim was to blur the dividing line between fine art and interior design. Grant adapted his figurative painting style to produce radically abstract and audacious design patterns that did most to distinguish Omega's high-end fabrics and other chic furnishings.
• Between them, Grant and Vanessa Bell used paintings, murals, sculptures and interior design to transform their home, Charleston House, into a booming artists' retreat in the Sussex countryside. Charleston's guest list amounted to something of a who's-who of the country's most radical and inventive creative minds. Among them were Bloomsbury members, Roger Fry, Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster, and friends and associates such as the poet, T.S. Eliot, the economist, John Maynard Keynes, and the composer, Benjamin Britten.
• Grant had two great loves in his life, the artist Vanessa Bell, and writer Paul Roche, a man 30 years his junior. Grant produced many homoerotic images throughout his career, including his controversial 1911 Bathing mural, for London's Borough Polytechnic. His images featuring Roche, meanwhile, have for many come to define his post World War II output. Works such as 1959's, Christ the Good Shepherd (with Roche modelling as Christ), have seen Grant identified as a vital figure in the "queering" of 20^th century British art (even though Grant and Roche's enduring mutual love remained platonic).

The Life of Duncan Grant

Progression of Art

Biography of Duncan Grant

Childhood and Education

Duncan Grant was the only child born to Bartle and Ethel Grant. His father came from an important and well-respected Scottish family, his grandfather having served as the governor of both India and Jamaica. Bartle's own military career meant that his son spent the first years of his childhood in India (where Bartle was stationed with his regiment). With the blessing of his family, and especially his beloved nanny, Alice Bates, Grant enthusiastically pursued his interest in art and design. According to author Frances Spalding, "As a boy he developed a passion for weddings and designed wedding dresses and bridal processions in a 'gothic' style. But in everything he drew or painted he expressed a certain wonder at what he saw".

At age nine, Grant was sent to England to attend public school (his parents remained in India). In England he was cared for by family members, including his grandmother, and his aunt, Jane Strachey. His first influence of note was the Pre-Raphaelite, Edward Burne-Jones. According to Spalding, the headmaster's wife "lent Duncan a large volume of reproductions by Burne-Jones, whose sensuous treatment of the human figure [...] made a terrific impact on him ".

Early Training

Grant's formal art training began in earnest in 1902 when, aged seventeen, he enrolled at the Westminster School of Art. He lodged in London with his aunt Jane and grew close to his male cousin Lytton who was five years older, and with whom Grant had a sexual relationship (possibly his first). As a student he travelled throughout Europe where he studied the works of many of the Great Masters. Grant was particularly enamored by the paintings of Piero della Francesca and Masaccio. In the summer of 1905, Lytton's sister, Pippa Strachey, took Grant to a meeting of the Friday Club, a discussion group of writers, artists and intellectuals who met (on a Friday) at the Bloomsbury home of the artist Vanessa Bell and her writer sister, Virginia Woolf.

In 1906 Grant moved to Paris where he attended the notable art school, Académie Julian. In the fall of that year he returned briefly to London, attending classes at the Slade School of Art. But the pull of Paris remained irresistible, and Grant returned to the French capital where he enrolled in a newly formed La Palette art school. His early works were strongly influenced by the French artist Simon Bussy who he had met through his cousin, Dorothy Bussy (née Strachey). The Bussys even introduced Grant to their friends, Henri Matisse and Gertrude Stein , but by 1907 Grant was settled back in London. In his relatively short period of absence, the Friday Club had evolved into the Bloomsbury Group and Grant duly assumed his role within the collective.

Mature Period

In 1911, Grant, who had joined the Camden Town Group (a collective, led by Walter Sickert, who painted aspects of everyday city life in a Post-Impressionist style), received a commission to work on a large mural project for the dining halls at London's Borough Polytechnic. As author Alex Pitcher writes, "The overall theme was 'London on holiday'. Grant produced two of the seven murals and, while his colleagues all celebrated family-centred activities, his designs focus on athletic male bodies. In his piece Football, he clearly enjoyed imagining skintight outfits to hug every bulging contour of his players. In Bathing, the clothes come off". Pitcher adds, "Adept at picking up male lovers, Grant understood the gay viewpoint he was implicitly presenting. He underlines his message with a set of poses that are almost scandalously suggestive. [...] Perhaps it's no surprise that one Edwardian hack, writing in the National Review, condemned the corrupting influence the dining hall murals would have on young students".

In late 1910 the art critic and curator, and new Bloomsbury member, Roger Fry, had organized an exhibition at the Grafton Galleries entitled Manet and the Post-Impressionists. The exhibition was, for most of the estimated 25,000 visitors, their first exposure to works by the likes of Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse, and van Gogh (Manet already being well known). Such was the success of the exhibition, Fry called on Grant to help stage The Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition: British, French and Russian Artists. It ran at the same venue between October and December 1912, and, in a slightly revised form, in January 1913. As New York's Frick Research Library describes, "There were 242 numbered entries in the October 1912 catalogue, compared to 252 in the January 1913 version. [...] One can also see Roger Fry's collecting interests: in both arrangements there are four loans by him: Vanessa Bell's Nosegay, Duncan Grant's Queen of Sheba, Boris Von Anrep's L'homme construisant un puits pour désalterer le betail, and a Portland Stone Garden statue by Eric Gill".

During this period Fry and Vanessa Bell (who was still married to Clive Bell) became lovers. Fry was left devastated, however, when, in 1913, Bell and Grant became romantically involved and set up home together (despite his numerous homosexual affairs, the couple were inseparable and lived together until Bell's death in 1961). Putting his heartbreak to one side, Fry founded the Omega Workshops with Bell and Grant as his co-directors. The three colleagues brought together a core group of artists and designers including Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Dora Carrington, and Wyndham Lewis.

The Omega Workshops Ltd. opened in July 1913 at 33 Fitzroy Square in Bloomsbury (central London) where it ran for six years. The public were invited into the workshops to browse the furniture, fabrics, pottery, textiles, painted murals, stained glass, and upholstery items. According to the author Holly Williams, the Bloomsbury Group "exhibited a restless questing for new forms, on the page or the canvas. In their philosophy, they were pioneers across fields as various as feminism, pacifism, art theory and economics". And yet Omega's ideological goal was simply to dissolve the distinction between the fine and decorative arts by bringing the bold colors and simplified forms of Post-Impressionism, Cubism and/or Fauvism to its designs. To this end, Grant and others at Omega worked anonymously; producing objects and designs valued for their inherent beauty rather than for any idea of artistic reputation. Indeed, its handcrafted wares could be identified by a simple Workshop symbol: Ω (the Greek letter symbol Omega). On Thursday evenings, meanwhile, the Workshop doubled as a writers' club. Regular attendees included Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell, Leonard Woolf (husband of Virginia), John Maynard Keynes, David "Bunny" Garnett, George Bernard Shaw, and W. B. Yeats.

Back in 1909, Grant had, with his friend, the aristocrat and society hostess, Lady Ottoline Morrell, attended Sergei Diaghilev's groundbreaking Ballets Russes in London. Grant had been greatly inspired by the performances, but also the costume and stage set design. The historian Simon Watney writes, 'There was little that Grant could have learnt technically as a painter from the productions [...] It was the revelation of the potential of the theatre for modern design that inspired him". During 1914-15, Grant attended "dressing up" parties arranged by Lady Ottoline around the theme of the Ballets Russes. Recalling one such occasion, Lady Ottoline stated, "Duncan Grant was almost fierce, but full of humour and grace, as he bounded about like a Russian ballet dancer, or wound in and out in some intricate dance with Vanessa Bell or Bunny Garnett, who looked really fierce and barbaric in bright oranges and reds, a gay-coloured handkerchief on his head".

Around this time, the French theater director Jacques Copeau commissioned Grant to create costumes for his production of La Nuit des Rois (Night of the Kings). The production had a very simple stage dressing with "all the amusement of form and colour being produced by the costumes and the gestures of the actors". Historian Angelica Garnett writes, "The influence of dance and theatricality was not limited to Grant's stage commissions but permeated his other works with their freedom of line and playful use of colour. [The] physicality of dancers similarly captured his imagination and influenced his painting style and subject matter equally in unrelated paintings and drawings".

In the spring of 1915, Grant and Bell rented Eleanor House, in West Wittering on the Sussex coast. They were joined there by Grant's lover, Garnett (he was, or had been at one time, the lover of Bell too). At The House Grant and Bell painted each other's portraits, while both painted portraits of Garnett. Bell found, and acquired the lease on the nearby Charleston House, a large, if somewhat rundown, farmhouse in the beautiful East Sussex countryside. Although still married to Clive, Vanessa moved there with Grant and Garnett - both men, as conscientious objectors (avoided fighting in World War II for moral/ethical reasons ), only avoided imprisonment by agreeing to work as farm laborers on an adjacent farm - and her two children in 1916. Author Jennifer Grindley writes, "together at Charleston, Bell and Grant decorated the interiors of their house; the playfully painted surfaces and furniture make it the embodiment of a Post-Impressionist home. They brought an array of Omega objects with them [...]. Charleston became the country home of the Bloomsbury Group, with artists, writers and intellectuals making regular visits". Indeed, Grant mimicked the earlier parties put on by Lady Ottoline by creating garden parties with costumes and sets he and Bell had created.

In December 1918, Bell gave birth to Grant's only child, a daughter named Angelica. Clive Bell, the father of Vanessa's two sons, agreed to say that the child was his to avoid any unnecessary scandal, and for the first seventeen years of her life, Angelica was unaware that Grant was her biological father. According to Turnbaugh, "around the time of Angelica's birth, Duncan told Vanessa he could no longer sleep with her; not because it didn't give him sexual pleasure, but because he could not bear the psychological tension this intimacy created. He wanted the security she represented, and she wanted him beside her, even if it meant a celibate life for herself ". Despite this lack of intimacy, Grant and Bell (who found a way to accept Grant's many male lovers including artists, Stephen Tomlin, Teddy Wolfe, George Bergen, and even Bell's brother, Adrian) settled into a pattern of mutual love and companionship.

Meanwhile, Grant's reputation as an artist grew to the extent that by the early 1920s he was in high demand in England, throughout Europe, and in New York City. As historian Grace Page writes, "In February 1920, [Grant's] first solo exhibition opened at the Paterson-Carfax Gallery in Old Bond Street, London to a varied, but largely receptive public. [The] Carfax exhibition served as a turning point in Grant's career, offering him the opportunity to be considered as an individual, beyond the boundaries [...] of his associations with his contemporaries". In addition to his expressive Post-Impressionist landscapes and portraits, Grant continued to expand his résumé by working on designs and ballet scenery. Indeed, in 1920, Garant and Bell collaborated on stage set designs for a production of High Yellow, a ballet set to modern jazz music.

Such was Grant's ascendency, Fry put aside his personal grievances to write the introduction to Living Painters, Ducan Grant, published in 1924 (with a second run following in 1930). Fry had planned the book to be the first in a series, but no further issues followed. Fry's introduction, which focused mostly on Grants decorative work, set the tone for 24 full page prints with short captions. He wrote: "When he was working at the Omega workshops his fellow-artists all recognised the peculiar charm, the unexpected originality, and the rare distinction of his ideas, and I should be inclined to say that some of the designs which he then made for carpets, for marquetry, and for needlework represent the high-water mark of applied design in England". Grant's fame was confirmed when he represented Britain at the 1926 Venice Biennale (and again in 1932 and 1940).

In 1934, Bell took the difficult decision to tell Angelica that Grant was her biological father. This brought about a deep resentments that were exacerbated when Angelica began a relationship with Garnett, who was not only the former lover of both her parents, but a man twenty-six years her senior. (The antipathy between all parties was intesified when Angelica and Garnett were married in April 1943. Eventually all sides reconciled, however, with Grant and Bell becoming "hands-on" grandparents, and active in their support of Angelina's aspirations to become an artist.)

In 1935 Grant received a commission to create three panel paintings, and carpet and textile designs, for a new ocean liner, the RMS Queen Mary. He threw himself headlong into the project but, to his considerable vexation, the director of the Cunard shipping company rejected his designs on grounds that they were "too modern". Grant thought he had reached a compromise when he made some modifications to the panels, but these too were rejected. Grant was outraged and, with the support of friends and colleagues, trustees and representatives of the Tate Museum and the National Gallery, sent letters of protest to the company. Grant also took legal action with the upshot that Cunard paid Grant the agreed fee and returned all works to him. In 1937 Grant exhibited the panels to widespread acclaim.

Later Period

Following the death of three of its principal members: Lytton Strachey (from stomach cancer, in 1932), Roger Fry (from an unexpected fall at home, in 1934), and Virginia Woolf (by drowning, in 1941), the Bloomsbury Group had slowly an effectively come to an end. But its decline, and the onset of WWII, marked a new phase in Grant's life. During WWII Grant produced two works, including one of St. Paul's Cathedral, a defining symbol of the country's endurance, for the War Artist's Advisory Committee. London's Imperial War Museum writes, "Grant was contacted by the Committee in March 1940 and, after discussions, was commissioned to paint a picture for 100 guineas. The result was 'Gun Drill' and the Committee also looked at sketches relating to this picture. Grant was offered a further commission in May 1941, for an oil depicting the Chapter House at Salisbury, which was being used as a shelter for refugees. However, when Grant visited, the shelter was not occupied and therefore seemed unsuitable. As an alternative, he was offered a commission to paint St Paul's Cathedral instead".

Soon after, in 1943, Grant accepted a commission for a series of bible-themed murals for a small country church in Berwick, East Sussex. He enlisted the help of Bell, her son Quentin, and their own daughter, Angelica. Some of the church members objected to Grant's modern take on the crucifixion with one of the congregation lodging a formal complaint with the higher administration of the church. Happily, her complaint was rejected, and the project was completed without further ado.

In July 1946, the 61-year-old Grant met a young man who would have a profound effect on Grant's life. Paul Roche was, unbeknownst to Grant at that time, the personal assistant to Cardinal Griffin, the Archbishop of Westminster. The two men met (Roche, as was his habit, was curiously dressed as a sailor) on Picadilly Circus. Roche recalled "As we plunged across the Circus, more or less together, he darted me a look in which I thought I saw something tenderly curious and questioning. He wanted me to be the first to speak when we arrived, panting as it were, in the safe haven of Dunn's hat-shop ... 'That was difficult,' I said. 'Indeed, it was' - so began our first exchange in our relationship". The pair spent the rest of the day at the nearby apartment of Anglo-French artist, Edward Le Bas. Here they discussed painting and drank whisky. Roche started modelling for Grant from the very next day.

Roche also modelled for Le Bas and Vanessa Bell, but Grant and Roche's friendship led to friction with Bell who viewed him as a threat on their unique relationship. Nevertheless, Roche, who Grant encouraged to sever ties with the church and pursue his passion for writing and poetry (which he did with tremendous success) became a part of the couple's everyday life, even joining them on their overseas travels.

In 1952 Grant responded to a notice in The Times placed by the charitable Edwin Austin Memorial Trust Fund inviting proposals for new works of art to be created for historical religious buildings. Grant won a commission to create a mural depicting St. Blaise for the Russell Chantry at Lincoln Cathedral. Although Grant completed the mural in 1959, it would not be on view to the public for another 30 years. Some of the church elders had taken exception to Grant's homoerotic depiction of "Roche-as-Christ", who, as if adding insult to injury, was presented as boyish and without facial hair. The mural might have seen the light of day earlier had lurid stories of Grant's homosexuality not appeared in the serialization of Michael Holdroyd's biography of Lytton Strachey in the Sunday Times in 1967 (even though Roche always claimed that he and Grant never had sexual relations).

1959 saw Grant's first full retrospective at the Tate (another followed in 1975) while in the same year he gifted a folder of drawings marked "very private" to Le Bas. Paul McQueen of Art Quarterly writes, "Inside [the folder] Le Bas found 422 erotic illustrations, made during the 1940s and 1950s, showing queer sexual encounters between models of multiple races". (Over the years, many of the drawings were passed down from "friend to friend, lover to lover", before being donated by theatre designer Norman Coates to the Charleston Museum in 2020.) Meanwhile, Grant suffered several personal difficulties in the last decades of his life. First, while they remained close friends, Grant suffered bouts of intense jealousy after Roche married, had children, and decided to move to America to further his writing career. Roche proved his loyalty to Grant, however, when he returned to care for him in 1961 while his friend was mourning the loss of his other great love, Bell (to bronchitis). The visit established a pattern where Roche often travelled to England to tend to Grant. In 1973, mindful of his advancing age and declining health, Roche and his family returned to London permanently.

Although Grand and Roche rented an apartment in Tangier for six months, Grant's health continued to decline and in 1975 he suffered a life-threatening bout of pneumonia. Roche moved Grant into his family home where he set up a room where he could paint. In 1978, Grant fell to a second bout of pneumonia from which he did not recover. Roche was at Grant's bedside when he died. He recalled: "Duncan lay on the bed... I came up to him the night before he died ... this is what I think I said, or the gist of it ... 'Duncan, you have nothing to worry about, whatever you have done in life that you are sorry for, God loves you, whatever you've done, He loves you. You don't have to worry about anything. You're in His hands, and so you can sleep peacefully and everything is ok [...] Duncan was incapable of speaking ... so I quietly left the room ... when I came back in the morning ... I realised Duncan was dead". Grant died, aged 93, and was buried next to Vanessa Bell near to their cherished Charleston House.

The Legacy of Duncan Grant

As a leading figure within the Bloomsbury Group, Grant was instrumental in carrying British modernism into the 20^th century. Drawing inspiration from the "child-like" paintings of the Fauvists, he produced a body of work that made him one of the country's most relevent and respected artists. Grant was widely admired, too, for his versatility which he demonstrated to best effect in his plate, linen, and carpet designs for the Omega Workshops, and in his beautification, with Vanessa Bell, of the Charleston House (now a museum). Like any artist whose career spanned 70 years, his output is marked by peaks and troughs, but he continued to produce meaningful works into his mature (post war) years, many of them featuring his muse, Paul Roche. As his biographer, Frances Spalding, writes, "Grant spanned great changes in society and art, from Edwardian Britain to the 1970s, from Alma-Tadema to Gilbert and George". Today, Grant is also recognized as a trailblazer amongst the gay community.

Grants designs continue to attract the attention of luxury brands. Company Parada, founded by American Helene Wood in 1997, for example, produces "high quality and renowned faultlessly English fabrics, wallpaper and textile decorations" based on "the beautifully preserved home [Charleston House] of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant". In 2023, meanwhile, Grant's designs provided the inspiration for the Dior Men's Summer collection, Dior x Duncan Grant x Charleston. As the author Natalie Duff described, "the detailed garments and the elaborate staging for the show [were] both inspired by the artist Duncan Grant and his home, studio and garden at Charleston, and Christian Dior and his childhood home at Granville, Normandy. [...] Their garments incorporated details inspired by a selection of Duncan Grant's original artworks from our collection [...] including the artist's lilypond design for the Omega workshops ".

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