Talk - The Paintings at Charleston

“I never think of the paintings as separate from the rest of the collection, but as part of a whole”, says curator Wendy Hitchmough, as way of introduction to the subject of the talk that she will be giving at Charleston tonight. “It’s so different from working with other collections because it was Vanessa, Clive Bell and Duncan Grant’s home. In my talk I will try to take the pictures out of context but also highlight their close relationship to the setting.” “For instance”, she continues. “I will show a slide of one of the rooms with nothing in it to show how different it is with everything arranged as they had it.” Most of the artworks were painted by Bell and Grant but the collection also reflects the artists that they admired. “They bought some of the paintings and others they exchanged. So, for example, Duncan Grant gave a painting to Matthew Smith and he gave one back in return so we have one of his. They obviously had a very intimate relationship with their own artworks and others.”

Some of the best artworks are no longer at Charleston, though, I learn from Wendy. “There used to be some Picassos and Matisses and others that were sold in their lifetime. But now we are currently in the process of getting back some of the pictures that have been removed. In the last few years we have made four or five major acquisitions including one of Vanessa Bell’s best known works - ‘Iceland Flowers’. She pauses, “There’s something amazing as a curator about putting a painting back in its rightful place.” ER