Art - Nerissa Garnett

Nerissa Garnett, whose artistic reputation is enjoying a burst of posthumous fame thanks to concurrent exhibitions in the Thebes Gallery (of her paintings and ceramics) and Charleston (of her photographs) was very much a product of the Bloomsbury scene. Her father, the writer David ‘Rabbit’ Garnett, was intimate with the group from childhood, and enjoyed a brief affair with Duncan Grant before marrying his (Grant’s) daughter, Angelica, 26 years his junior. Nerissa was one of four children from the union. The painter Vanessa Bell, of course, was one of her grandmothers, and Virginia Woolf was a great aunt.
Nerissa’s creative output was sporadic. From her early thirties she suffered from what might be termed ‘painter’s block’, which meant that, though her work showed much promise, it never reached the potential it might have if she had continued to work diligently into maturity. Instead she got involved with the spiritual-hippy Findhorn Foundation, and took up pottery. The style of her ceramics is not what you’d expect from a daughter of Bloomsbury (very solid and practical) but the paintings at the Thebes exhibition are worth a visit, especially for Bloomsburyheads, who will enjoy playing ‘who’s who’ in paintings such as ‘Breakfast at Charleston’ a memory-inspired scene incorporating images of the likes of Duncan Grant, and Vanessa and Clive Bell. Later in her life (she died last year) she took up photography: the exhibition at Charleston shows a series of intimate portraits of her niece and niece’s child. AL