Duncan Grant
Encyclopedia
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and designer of textiles, potterty and theatre sets and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group
Bloomsbury Group
The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set was a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century. This English collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied near Bloomsbury in London during the first half...
.
(He was a grandson of Sir John Peter Grant, 12th Laird
Laird
A Laird is a member of the gentry and is a heritable title in Scotland. In the non-peerage table of precedence, a Laird ranks below a Baron and above an Esquire.-Etymology:...
of Rothiemurchus, and the first cousin twice removed of John Grant, Lord Huntingtower, heir of the Earls of Dysart
Earl of Dysart
Earl of Dysart is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1643 for William Murray, who had earlier represented Fowey and East Looe in the English House of Commons. He was made Lord Huntingtower at the same time, also in the Peerage of Scotland. He was succeeded by his daughter, the...
.)
Early life
Grant was born on 21 January 1885 in Rothiemurchus in northern ScotlandNorthern Scotland
Northern Scotland is an administrative division of Scotland used for police and fire services. It consists of Highland, the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands and the Western Isles. The police service uses Northern in its name, but the fire service uses the name Highlands and Islands Fire and...
. He studied art at the Slade School and in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
.
He was a cousin, and for some time a lover, of Lytton Strachey
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey was a British writer and critic. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit...
. Through the Stracheys, Duncan was introduced to the Bloomsbury Group, where John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes of Tilton, CB FBA , was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments...
became another of his lovers.
Career in art
Grant is best known for his painting style, which developed in the wake of French post-impressionistPost-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
exhibitions mounted in London in 1910. He often worked with, and was influenced by, another member of the group, art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
and artist Roger Fry
Roger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry was an English artist and art critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism...
. As well as painting landscape
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
s and portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
s, Fry designed textiles and ceramics.
After Fry founded the Omega Workshops
Omega Workshops
The Omega Workshops was a design enterprise founded by members of the Bloomsbury Group and established in 1913. It was located at 33 Fitzroy Square in London, and was founded with the intention of providing graphic expression to the essence of the Bloomsbury ethos...
in 1913, Grant became co-director with Vanessa Bell
Vanessa Bell
Vanessa Bell was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury group, and the sister of Virginia Woolf.- Biography and art :...
, who was then involved with Fry. Although Grant had always been actively homosexual, a relationship with Vanessa blossomed, which was both creative and personal, and he eventually moved in with her and her two sons by her husband Clive Bell
Clive Bell
Arthur Clive Heward Bell was an English Art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group.- Origins :Clive Bell was born in East Shefford, Berkshire, in 1881...
. In 1916, in support of his application for recognition as a conscientious objector
Conscientious objector
A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....
, Grant joined his new lover, David Garnett
David Garnett
David Garnett was a British writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life.-Early life:...
, in setting up as fruit farmers in Suffolk. Both their applications were initially unsuccessful, but eventually the Central Tribunal agreed to recognise them on condition of their finding more appropriate premises. Vanessa Bell found the house named Charleston near Firle in Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
. Relationships with Clive Bell remained amicable, and Bell stayed with them for long periods fairly often – sometimes accompanied by his own mistress, Mary Hutchinson.
In 1935 Grant was selected along with nearly 30 other prominent British artists of the day to provide works of art for the RMS Queen Mary
RMS Queen Mary
RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed primarily in the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line...
then being built in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. Grant was commissioned to provide paintings and fabrics for the first class Main Lounge. In early 1936, after his work was installed in the Lounge, directors from the Cunard Line made a walk-through inspection of the ship. When they saw what Grant had created, they immediately rejected his works and ordered it removed.
Grant is quoted in the book "The Mary - the inevitable ship" by Potter and Frost, as saying:
"I was not only to paint some large murals to go over the fireplaces, but arrange for the carpets, curtains, textiles, all of which were to be chosen or designed by me. After my initial designs had been passed by the committee I worked on the actual designs for four months. I was then told the committee objected to the scale of the figures on the panels. I consented to alter these, and although it entailed considerable changes, I got a written assurance that I should not be asked to make further alterations. I carried on, and from that time my work was seen constantly by the Company's (Cunard's) representative.
When it was all ready I sent the panels to the ship to put the finishing touches to them when hanging. A few days later I received a visit from the Company's man, who told me that the Chairman had, on his own authority, turned down the panels, refusing to give any reason.
From then on, nothing went right. My carpet designs were rejected and my textiles were not required. The whole thing had taken me about a year..... I never got any reason for the rejection of my work. The company simply said they were not suitable, paid my fee, and that was that."
Personal life
Vanessa very much wanted a child by Duncan, and became pregnant in the spring of 1918. Although it is generally assumed that Duncan's sexual relations with Vanessa ended in the months before AngelicaAngelica Garnett
Angelica Vanessa Garnett is a British writer and painter.-Early life:She was the illegitimate daughter of the painters Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell, sister of Virginia Woolf, and was a member of the Bloomsbury Group...
was born (Christmas, 1918), they continued to live together for more than 40 years.
Open relationship
An open relationship is an interpersonal relationship in which the parties want to be together but agree to a form of a non-monogamous relationship. This means that they agree that a romantic or sexual relationship with another person is accepted, permitted, or tolerated...
, although she herself apparently never took advantage of this after settling down with him and having their child. Duncan, in contrast, had many physical affairs and several serious relationships with other men, most notably David Garnett
David Garnett
David Garnett was a British writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life.-Early life:...
. His love and respect for Vanessa, however, kept him with her until her death in 1961.
Later years
In Grant's later years, the poet Paul Roche (1916-2007), whom he had known since 1946, took care of him and enabled Grant to maintain his accustomed way of life at Charleston for many years. Roche was made co-heir of Grant's estate. Grant eventually died in Roche's home in 1978.Duncan Grant's remains are buried beside Vanessa Bell's in the churchyard of St. Peter's Church, West Firle, East Sussex.
Literary references
- Duncan Grant is referenced with Isadora DuncanIsadora DuncanIsadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...
and Mary GardenMary GardenMary Garden , was a Scottish operatic soprano with a substantial career in France and America in the first third of the 20th century...
in A Drunk Man Looks at the ThistleA Drunk Man Looks at the ThistleA Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle is a long poem by Hugh MacDiarmid written in Scots and published in 1926. It is composed as a form of monologue with influences from stream of consciousness genres of writing...
(1926) by Hugh MacDiarmidHugh MacDiarmidHugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scottish poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century...
(lines 30-32).
Further reading
- Duncan Grant, a biography by Frances SpaldingFrances SpaldingFrances Spalding CBE, FRSL is a British art historian and writer.She studied at Nottingham University and gained her PhD for a study of Roger Fry. She taught art history at Sheffield City Polytechnic before becoming a freelance writer and curator...
(1997) ISBN 0-7011-3409-7 - Mémoires de Duncan Grant, un Highlander à Bloomsbury by Christian Soleil (2011), Monpetitéditeur, Paris.
External links
- The Duncan Grant Collection at the Victoria University Library at the University of Toronto
- Charleston Farmhouse
- Duncan Grant at artcyclopedia.com
- Duncan Grant at Virtual Scotland
- Turnbaugh, Douglas Blair. "Grant, Duncan." In Glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture, edited by Claude J. Summers. glbtq, Inc.: Chicago, 2004.
- Quentin Bell, ‘Grant, Duncan James Corrowr (1885–1978)’, rev. Frances Spalding, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004