Bloomsbury Bliss September 22 30, 2018 Our previous Bloomsbury Revisited quickly sold out and was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Our participants appreciated our focused tour agenda which offered opportunities to visit places and art collections not on public view, and hold discussions with subject experts and family members. We re now planning to offer the tour this coming fall and the week will be even better and more enjoyable. If you or a friend are a fan of the Bloomsbury Group Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, John Maynard Keynes, Roger Fry, Clive Bell, and their friends such as Vita Sackville West - we invite you to set aside this week and join us. Plaque in Bloomsbury 46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury At the turn of the 20 th century, a group of writers and artists began to gather together in Bloomsbury, that part of London near the British Museum and several colleges and universities, that was becoming the city s Bohemian center. This small group of sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, lovers and friends known collectively as the Bloomsbury Group included the Stephen sisters Virginia and Vanessa and their brother Thoby, Leonard Wolf, Duncan Grant, E. M.
Forster, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry and Clive Bell. They met regularly to discuss literature, aesthetics, economics and issues such as feminism, pacifism and sexuality. Their art, novels, publications and exhibitions delighted some and disturbed others. Ultimately they would exert a disproportional influence upon the art and ideas of the modern age. More than a century later, we will spend a week following in their footsteps, visiting the places in London where they lived, exhibited and held their meetings. Many of the ideas they advanced were percolated at Cambridge University and no trip examining this group would be complete without a visit there. Then we head south to Sussex and Surrey to visit the homes where they escaped city life and continued to explore their innovative ways of thinking, working and living. Clive Bell and Duncan Grant, by Vanessa Bell Our trip begins in London, in Bloomsbury, with a walking tour lead by Jean Moorcroft Wilson an author of several books on members of the Bloomsbury group, who with her husband, Cecil Woolf, Leonard Wilson s nephew, will host us in their home. In London we offer several behind the scenes visits to collections from museums and private collections. We ll spend a day in Cambridge where so many of them met. Several of them were members of The Apostles, a secret society centered at Kings College, though some were at other colleges. Virginia Woolf wrote about a luncheon held there in her book A Room of One s Own and it will be recreated for us to give us a taste of those times and conversations. Kings College, Cambridge
Next we journey down by train to Lewes in Sussex where we stay for four nights. While here we will have a tour of the marvelous Charleston Farmhouse, home of Vanessa and Clive Bell, where they and Duncan Grant, worked and hosted family friends. Almost a time capsule, this rather simple farmhouse and its pond and walled garden, and studios was rented during the First World War and later purchased. Charleston Farmhouse Interiors We will visit Virginia and Leonard Woolf s Monks House just close by. One of Virginia s closest friends was Vita Sackville-West whose ancestral home is Knole. As a daughter she could not inherit, so when she married Harold Nicolson, they bought Sissinghurst. Over the years they restored many of the buildings on the property and built one of the most exceptional and glorious gardens in all of southeast England. Sissinghurst Not too far away in Surrey is Durbins, the home that Roger Fry designed for his family. And not too far from that is the Watts Gallery, Watts Mortuary Chapel and Limnerslease the home and studio of G.F.Watts and his wife Mary. While Watts, one of the most famous of England s 19 th - century artists, may seem almost to be of another century, there are many connections to Bloomsbury. He painted Virginia and Vanessa s father, Vanessa studied with him, and Roger Fry gave a talk at the Gallery.
Durbins With lunches and dinners with members of the family, experts, collectors and artists this is a glorious tour at one of the best times of the year to be in England. Do join us. Elaine Hirschl Ellis, President Gail Ettinger, Program Director Arts & Crafts Tours 110 Riverside Drive New York, New York 10024 212 362 0761 917 442 6884 artsandcraftstours@gmail.com www.artsandcraftstours.com
GUIDES AND LECTURERS Wendy Hitchmough, former Curator at Charleston Farmhouse, is an art historian specializing in the architecture and design of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among her many books are C.F.A.Voysey, The Arts and Crafts Home, and The Michelin Building. Peyton Skipwith is an independent art consultant, writer and critic and former director of The Fine Art Society where he organized many exhibitions covering most aspects of British fine and decorative arts of the late nineteen and early twentieth centuries. He is a frequent contributor to Apollo, The Burlington and The Literary Review. He a Trustee of the North West Essex Art Collection and a Past Master and the Honorary Curator of the Art Workers Guild. Jean-Michel Massing is Emeritus Professor of Art History and Director of Studies at King s College, Cambridge. Jean Moorcroft Wilson is a writer and lecturer in English at Birkbeck, University of London. She is a biographer and critic of First World War poets perhaps best known for her two-volume biography of Siegfried Sassoon. She has also written works on Virginia Woolf and with her husband, Cecil Woolf, founded Bloomsbury Heritage where she is the editor. Leonard Woolf, the nephew of Leonard and Virginia Woolf, was for many years a publisher before he began, with his wife Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Bloomsbury Heritage which publishes monographs on artists and writers of connected with the Bloomsbury Group. This follows very much in the tradition of the Hogarth Essays of his uncle and aunt s Hogarth Press. Contact us at artsandcraftstours@gmail.com for additional information. If you have already decided to join us, please fill out the Registration Form. The cost of the tour is $8,750.00.