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Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism: A Biography

Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism: A Biography

by Mark Hussey
Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism: A Biography

Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism: A Biography

by Mark Hussey

Overview

This landmark biography brings art critic Clive Bell, member of the Bloomsbury Group, back into prominence.

Clive Bell is perhaps more well-known today for being a Bloomsbury socialite and the husband of Vanessa Bell, sister to Virginia Woolf. Yet Bell was a highly important figure in his own right: an internationally renowned art critic who championed young artists, he defended daring new forms of expression at a time when Britain was closed off to all things foreign. His groundbreaking book Art brazenly subverted the narratives of art history and cemented his status as the great interpreter of modern art. Bell was also an ardent pacifist and a touchstone for the Wildean values of individual freedoms, and his is a story that leads us into an extraordinary world of intertwined lives, loves and sexualities.

For decades Bell has been a shadowy figure, refracted through the wealth of writing on Bloomsbury, but here Mark Hussey brings Bell to the forefront through reference to personal letters, archives and Bell's own extensive writing. Complete with a cast of famous characters, including Lytton Strachey, T. S. Eliot, Katherine Mansfield, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau, Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism is a fascinating portrait of a man who was born into the life of a country squire but went on to become one of the pioneering voices in art of his era.

Reclaiming Bell's stature among the makers of modernism, Hussey has given us a biography to muse and marvel over – a snapshot of a time and of a man who was at the heart of the shock of the new.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781408894446
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publication date: 07/06/2021
Pages: 592
Product dimensions: 6.37(w) x 9.59(h) x 1.53(d)

About the Author

Mark Hussey is Distinguished Professor of English at Pace University in New York City. Born in London, after completing a PhD at Nottingham, he moved to the US in 1982 and worked at the Association of American Publishers and the Sander Gallery in Soho. Mark is best known for his decades of work on the Bloomsbury Group and Virginia Woolf: he is the General Editor for Harcourt's annotated editions of her works and editorial board member of the Cambridge Edition of Woolf.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Part I Becoming Clive (1881-1907) 1

1 Beginnings 3

2 Cambridge 9

3 A Brace of Partridges 18

4 Paris 23

5 Vanessa 30

Part II Art and Letters (1907-1914) 49

6 Virginia 51

7 Roger 81

8 A Hornets' Nest 93

9 Leonard 98

10 Significant Form 104

11 Omega 112

12 A Complete Theory of Visual Art 117

Part III Pacifists and Poets (1914-1918) 123

13 Mary 125

14 Peace at Once 135

15 Art and War 143

16 Tribunals and Tribulations 154

17 Garsington 160

18 Ad Familiares 172

19 Angelica 180

Part IV A Highly Civilised Loafer (1919-1929) 185

20 The New Ballet 187

21 Order and Authority 198

22 Wives and Lovers 214

23 Liberty 228

24 The Lively Arts 232

25 Landmarks 238

26 The End of the Affair 246

27 Insane about Females 268

Part V Nothing Worse than War (1930-1939) 277

28 Clive Agonistes 279

29 An Account of French Painting 289

30 Dancing on a Volcano 294

31 Enjoying Pictures 302

32 Art and the Public 312

33 Your Schoolgirl Mistress 319

34 Today the Struggle 327

35 Warmongers 331

36 Euston Road 337

Part VI Civilisation's Flame (1939-1949) 343

37 Alarm and Despondency 345

38 Art on Trial 355

39 Collaboration 367

40 Experts and Hoaxes 375

41 Retrospect 385

Part VII Old Friends (1950-1964) 399

42 Clive Bell Looks at American Art 401

43 Douglas Cooper 419

44 A Gang of Conspirators 423

45 Things Are Never So Bad but They Might Be Worse 431

Epilogue 445

Abbreviations 447

Notes 451

Bibliography 535

Archives and Collections 551

Index 553

Acknowledgments 571

Image Credits 577

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Biography
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