Portraiture & the Bloomsbury Group

“We should have to eradicate politeness,” Vanessa Bell wrote in a letter to her husband, Clive Bell, in 1905. The sister of Virginia Woolf, Bell was an artist who became a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group—the loose collective that included artists, writers and intellectuals living in Britain in the early twentieth century. They are remembered for their personalities, relationships and unconventional lifestyles. Generally from wealthy backgrounds, they rebelled against their upbringings, were politically liberal, and desired freedom to pursue their own intellectual interests. Portraiture was central to their artistic practices as their relationships were dominant in their lives.

The collection of portrait drawings in the September 18, 2025, 19th & 20th Century Art auction is especially emblematic of the intimate relationships between the members of the group and serves as a reflection on their own lives and partnerships.

Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant

Vanessa Bell, Portrait of Duncan Grant, pencil on lined ledger paper, 1931. Sold for $25,400, a record for a pencil drawing by Bell.

While Vanessa was married to Clive Bell, she had a romantic relationship and a lifelong friendship with the artist Duncan Grant. Having met in 1905, they struck up a friendship and Grant moved into Charleston, Bell’s home in the Sussex countryside during World War I to work as a farm laborer, as he was a conscientious objector. Grant brought along his lover, David “Bunny” Garnett. Bell, an avid photographer, often captured the parties and social scene at the house. While married to Clive Bell, Vanessa took on lovers, including Grant, and had a child with him in 1918. Their creative partnership was just as important as their romantic one. Both Bell and Grant chose rooms in the house for their art studios and they remained steadfast friends throughout their lives, working together to paint murals and house decorations. This portrait is from the period later in their careers after having shared years together as collaborators.

Henry Lamb

Henry Lamb, Portrait of Lytton Strachey, pencil on paper, 1913. Sold for $10,160.

Of all the members of the Bloomsbury Group, no one championed portraiture more than Henry Lamb. Born in Australia, he moved to Manchester as a child and studied with Augustus John at the Chelsea School of Art. John became his mentor and Lamb began to associate with members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Lytton Strachey, the writer and critic who remained in love with Lamb for years.

He is known as a portraitist and for depicting members of the social and artistic circle. In the Family Group (Boris Anrep and his Family), the study for the 1931 painting, he depicts the mosaicist Boris Anrep with his wife and children. Anrep was a Russian artist who worked in Britain. Here he is pictured with his wife Helen, who Lamb introduced to him while on a trip to Paris.

The auction also includes a drawing by Lamb of Lady Ottoline Morrell, who was a central figure in the Bloomsbury Group. While not an artist herself, she took on the role of a patron and friend to many modern British writers and artists. She was married to the MP Philip Morrell, but they had an open marriage and both had many affairs. She allegedly romanced Henry Lamb, Boris Anrep, Augustus John and a gardener at her estate (which may have been the inspiration behind D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover).

Henry Lamb, Family Group (Boris Anrep and his Family), watercolor and pencil on paper, circa 1931. Sold for $2,286.

Henry Lamb, Portrait of Lady Ottoline Morrell, pencil on paper. Sold for $5,588.

The history of the Bloomsbury Group is the history of the relationships between the artists and how they inspired and affected one another’s lives, never more present in artistic form than in portraiture. The selection of portraits gives a personal view of the tangled relationships of the members of the Bloomsbury Group, whose connections were integral to their lives and creativity.