[Vwoolf] Little-known Vanessa Bell painting.

Jane Marie Garrity jane.garrity at colorado.edu
Thu Oct 18 22:33:59 EDT 2018


Hi all,
Thanks for all of those terrific speculations!

As Diane points out in her chapter in The Edinburgh Companion, this Bell painting predates both Mrs. Dalloway (1925) and the seven short-stories written between 1922 and 1927 that were published by Stella McNicol as Mrs. Dalloway’s Party in 1973. However Mrs. Dalloway does of course appear in The Voyage Out (1915), so is the central figure supposed to allude to Clarissa?

Christine’s great question—“are those fingers on the young woman (Mary Hutchinson)'s left shoulder?”—is unanswerable because of the imposing central figure.

That figure’s extremely revealing  décolleté  is not a Bell signature, so what exactly is that plunging neckline doing in this painting?  We know that Mary Hutchinson was bisexual, and if the figure on the far left is indeed Hutchinson, then perhaps the painting is commentary on her sexuality… or is something else going on here?

Such questions seem only to add mystery upon mystery, but thanks for helping us try to problem-solve!
best wishes,
Jane


Jane Garrity
Associate Professor of English
Associate Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies
University of Colorado at Boulder
226 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0226
Jane.Garrity at Colorado.Edu<mailto:Jane.Garrity at Colorado.Edu>

On Oct 18, 2018, at 11:34 AM, Diane Gillespie via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu<mailto:vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>> wrote:


The painting is reproduced in black and white in my "Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell and Painting" (p. 130) in The Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf and the Arts, ed. Maggie Humm (2010).  Barbara Ginsberg kindly described the colors for me and I included them in my discussion of the painting in relation to Woolf's description of the party in Mrs. Dalloway (pp. 129-131).

Diane Gillespie

On 10/18/2018 9:44 AM, Christine Froula via Vwoolf wrote:

Fantastic recovery! And--are those fingers on the young woman (Mary Hutchinson)'s left shoulder? if so... whose..?

On 10/18/2018 11:04 AM, Regina Marler via Vwoolf wrote:
Dear Woolfians,

My friends Barbara and Howard Ginsberg bought this painting from Caroline Cuthbert at Anthony d'Offay in the 1980s. Caroline only vaguely remembers the story of its discovery by Quentin Bell and someone else, still rolled, in the "Monk's House attic." The painting has somehow picked up a title, "Mrs. Dalloway's Party"--I think a selling title given by d'Offay. It's signed VB 1922 in pencil on the verso, if I recall.

Looks like Mary Hutchinson on the left, and (at a stretch) Iris Tree in center? She was plump in this period but I'm not sure she was quite so monumental.

Diane Gillespie referred to the painting in the Edinburgh Companion, I think. Jane Garrity hopes to include mention of the painting (and a reproduction, if possible) in a forthcoming essay. Jane and I welcome any further thoughts you may have--whether about VB's making of this painting, VW's acquisition and non-display of it, or your musings on the painting itself.

With thanks in advance,

Regina Marler




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