News about Vanessa Bell

The Oxford English Dictionary was not created by a team of dons and professors, and it was actually the Wikipedia of its day, assembled by a huge army of ordinary people. Among a diverse cast of housewives, factory inspectors, engineers, social activists, and a slew of others, three murderers and at least four people of psychiatric institutions have been listed as contributors. Over a 36-year span from 1880 to 1915, James Murray, a generous and devoted family man who had left school at 14 with no formal training, arranged thousands of volunteers recruited globally by newspaper advertisements.

We're talking Bloomsbury style here, with color, pattern, and decorative touches on every surface and stick of furniture. This exuberant interiors look, created around 100 years ago in Charleston, the home of painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, is back and bolder than ever. Bell and Grant were part of the Bloomsbury group, a group of writers and artists, including Bell's sister Virginia Woolf, and the Sussex farmhouse became the group's gathering place, where they enlivened the group's dark interiors with paint together.