Vanessa Bell was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 painter

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 interior designer, 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...

, and the sister of Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....

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Vanessa Stephen was the eldest daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen

Leslie Stephen

Sir Leslie Stephen, KCB was an English author, critic and mountaineer, and the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.-Life:...

 and Julia Princep Duckworth (1846–1895). Her parents lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate

Hyde Park, London

Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...

, Westminster

Westminster

Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and Vanessa lived there until 1904. She was educated at home by her parents in languages, mathematics and history, and took drawing lessons from Ebenezer Cook

Ebenezer Wake Cook

Ebenezer Wake Cook was a water-colour painter.Cook was born at Maldon, Essex, England and came to Melbourne in 1852. At 17 years of age Cook became an assistant to Nicholas Chevalier, who instructed him in painting, wood-engraving and lithography. He was one of the original members of the...

 before she attended Sir Arthur Cope's art school in 1896, and then studied painting at the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

 in 1901.

In later life, Stephen claimed that during her childhood she had been sexually molested by her half-brothers, George

George Herbert Duckworth

Sir George Herbert Duckworth CB FSA was an English public servant.-Early life and family:The son of Herbert Duckworth, a barrister, of Orchardleigh Park, Somerset, by his marriage to Julia Princep Jackson, a niece of the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, Duckworth had a brother, Gerald, who...

 and Gerald Duckworth

Gerald Duckworth

Gerald de l'Etang Duckworth was a British publisher.-Background and early life:Duckworth was a son of Herbert Duckworth, a London barrister, by his wife Julia Jackson. His middle name, de l'Etang, was the surname of one of his mother's ancestors, Antoine de l'Etang, a page to Queen Marie Antoinette...

.

After the deaths of her mother in 1895 and her father in 1904, Vanessa sold 22 Hyde Park Gate and moved to Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury

-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...

 with Virginia and brothers Thoby

Thoby Stephen

Julian Thoby Stephen , known as the Goth, was the elder brother of several members of the Bloomsbury Group, namely his sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf and his younger brother Adrian....

 (1880–1906) and Adrian

Adrian Stephen

Adrian Stephen was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, an author and psychoanalyst, and the brother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell...

 (1883–1948), where they met and began socialising with the artists, writers and intellectuals who would come to form 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...

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She married 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 1907 and they had two sons, Julian

Julian Bell

Julian Heward Bell was an English poet, and the son of Clive and Vanessa Bell . The writer Quentin Bell was his younger brother, and the writer and painter Angelica Garnett is his half-sister...

 (who died in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

 at the age of 29), and Quentin

Quentin Bell

Quentin Claudian Stephen Bell was an English art historian and author.Bell was the son of Clive Bell and Vanessa Bell , and the nephew of Virginia Woolf . He was educated in London and at the Quaker Leighton Park School.Principally an artist, as a potter, he was drawn to academia...

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