Background
Vanessa (Stephen) Bell (1879-1961) was a British painter, interior designer, and a central
figure in the Bloomsbury group -- a group of friends, artists, writers, and intellectuals
united around a belief in the importance of the arts. She was the sister of author Virginia
Woolf and the wife of art critic Clive Bell whom she married in 1907. The Bells had two sons
Julian Bell and Quentin Bell; the couple also had an open marriage and Vanessa Bell had a
daughter, Angelica, with the painter Duncan Grant.Julian Heward Bell (1908-1937) was an English poet and the son of Vanessa Bell and Clive
Bell. He was educated at King's College, Cambridge and, in 1935, went to China to teach
English at Wuhan University. Though initially a pacifist, by 1937, Bell was more supportive
of the socialist and anti-fascist movements and became an ambulance driver for the
Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. After just a month in Spain, he was hit by bomb
fragments and died in a military hospital at the age of 29.
Restrictions
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from
or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The
responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining
necessary permissions rests with the researcher.