Vanessa Bell

The elder sister of Virginia Woolf, the daughter of the prominent Victorian writer Sir Leslie Stephen, Vanessa Bell was a well-known painter and designer of the early twentieth century.

She was a central figure of the Bloomsbury Group. When she was seventeen, Vanessa began to take drawing classes. She entered the painting school of Royal Academy Schools in 1901. In 1907, she married Clive Bell, a poet and an art critic who was also a member of the Bloomsbury group. Vanessa first had a love affair with the artist and critic Roger Fry, and later fell in love forever with the talented artist Duncan Grant. Both of these men were also prominent members of the Bloomsbury circle and had a substantial influence on Vanessa's attitude and on her art. Vanessa had three children, Julian and Quentin Bell, and Angeliclia, a daughter by Duncan Grant.