[Vwoolf] Picasso and Woolf?

Ashley Foster ashleyfoster at me.com
Mon Jun 27 12:29:13 EDT 2016


Dear Friends,

I am working on a book chapter right now concerning Picasso and Woolf, and cannot find any evidence of them having met.  This seems like a puzzle given how closely linked they were for close to thirty years, so I figured I would crowd-source this question to the best group I knew. Their circles overlapped in significant ways, which I have been able to trace, and have the below list of things I have so far found:

> Picasso himself was supposed to have attended the Spain & Culture rally, escorted by Quentin Bell, Woolf’s nephew, that Woolf sat on the platform to raise money for Spain on June 24, 1937  
> Vanessa and Duncan Grant saw Guernica as it was being painted in his studio.
> 
>  Picasso was a significant artistic influence on the Bloomsbury Group 
> Picasso frequently visited with Woolf’s brother-in-law, Clive
> one day, when Virginia and Clive Bell were having dinner at the Savoy Grill Room in July 1919, Clive “pointed out to me Picasso & Mme Picasso off to the ballet” (D 1 290). 
> Picasso spent the better part of the summer in England working on a ballet in 1919
> through the summer of 1919, he makes appearances in Woolf's letters and diaries
> a letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell implies that she was going to host a party for the painter, the party was cancelled, and that Woolf would have liked to have met Picasso (L II 365). 
> We know that a party did occur, hosted by Clive Bell and Maynard Keynes, on July 29, 1919 that Woolf did not attend because, presumably she and Leonard were moving from Asham to Monks House
> 
>  Virginia Woolf signed as a donor to have Guernica and its exhibition of studies brought to London at the New Burlington Galleries (as the Francis Spalding exhibition showed)
> 
> Roger Fry and Picasso intersected and had numerous connections
> 
> 
> However, I haven’t yet come across a reason why Woolf didn’t meet Picasso over the .  My questions for the group are:

Can anyone contradict the statement that they never met?  If so, when?
If they did indeed never meet, does anyone know why? 
Are there any other significant overlaps that I am missing? 
Is there any of your favourite scholarship on connections between Picasso and Woolf that should be on my radar? 
Many thanks for any thoughts, suggestions, or connections.  Of course, any ideas, leads, or sources that wind up in the text as a result of this email will be properly thanked and mentioned in my chapter acknowledgements. :) 

Cheers,
Ashley Foster


> On 25 Jun 2016, at 00:10, Leslie Hankins <lhankins at cornellcollege.edu> wrote:
> 
> Can someone who knows send me off list Lois Gilmore's email or snail mail address?
> Thanks, leslie
> 
> -- 
> Leslie Kathleen Hankins
> Professor
> Department of English & Creative Writing
> 
> "Moreover, however interesting facts may be, they are an inferior form of fiction, & gradually we become impatient of their weakness & diffuseness, of their compromises & evasions, of the slovenly sentences which they make for themselves, and are eager to revive ourselves with the greater intensity & truth of fiction."  
>                                                          Virginia Woolf, "How Should One Read a Book?"
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