Molly's inspiration: Charleston

Molly's Inspiration: Charleston

Molly shows you around the wonderful Charleston Farmhouse, once the home of Vanessa Bell and the Bloomsbury group, showing how her own designs have been influenced by the work and decoration shown here.

Lesson Summary

• Charleston Farm located in the English county of East Sussex was the Bloomsbury Group's country retreat.
• The home incorporates a variety of fabrics, colours, and prints to create an incredibly personal space.
• Charleston is an excellent example of artists collaborating, an example of living in the moment.
• Circles and stripes of colour are a common combination used by the Bloomsbury Group.
• The house pushes you to be bold and adventurous and is definitely worth a visit.
• My Charleston-inspired block printing kit can be purchased here.

Further Reading

You can find out further information about the Bloomsbury group on The Tate Modern's website here. If you are interested in reading about the life and work of The Bloomsbury Group, Wendy Hitchmough's 'The Bloomsbury Look' is a great starting point.

About the Bloomsbury Group

The Bloomsbury Group were a collective of artists and writers. In 1905, they started meeting at Vanessa Bell's London home, which she shared with her siblings Thoby Stephen and Virginia Woolf. Other prominent members of the group were John Maynard Keynes, Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey, E.M. Forster, Roger Fry and Saxon Sydney-Turner.

They were forward-thinking, and in their art, writing, and philosophy, they articulated a passion for social progress and a departure from the oppressive environment of the Victorian period.

Charleston

The Bloomsbury circle's social life revolved around the different houses that members and their friends possessed. Vanessa Bell lived in the Sussex countryside at Charleston Farmhouse. During the First World War, she moved there with her children as well as Duncan Grant and David 'Bunny' Garnett.

The house not only served as a source of inspiration for many literary works, but it also served as a centre for art and decoration. The Bloomsbury group decorated the walls, stencilled the wallpaper, and made curtains, furniture, and rugs.

Grant, Bell, and Fry ended up painting nearly the entire house over the years they lived there. The house was viewed as a blank canvas. Almost every surface of the house was decorated.

Sources; Tate Archive Journal, Charleston.org and Sites of British Modernism