Tuesday 10 November 2026
From Thursday 12 November, Tate Britain celebrates the extraordinary five-decade creative partnership between Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, two of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury features over 300 works and is the first major exhibition to chart the duo’s relationship and artistic journey. Organised in collaboration with Charleston, the pair’s East Sussex home, it runs until 11 April 2027. Here are five reasons to go.
1. The first major show of a five-decade partnership
Bell (1879–1961) and Grant (1885–1978) were first introduced in 1906, but it was a letter from Bell to Grant in 1909, inviting him to tea and proposing they call one another by their first names, that marked the start of their enduring partnership. With over 300 works, the exhibition traces their journey from early post-impressionist and abstract paintings to late naturalistic self-portraits, landscapes and still lifes. Portraits and self-portraits spanning both careers chart the course of their relationship and how their approach to making art evolved. There are even works from before the pair met, such as Bell’s Iceland Poppies c.1908–9, painted after her instruction under John Singer Sargent, and Grant’s After Chardin c.1906, made in Paris.
2. Some of Britain’s earliest abstract art
As core members of the Bloomsbury Group, a collective of artists, writers and intellectuals who discussed progressive ideas at 46 Gordon Square, Bell and Grant were at the forefront of avant-garde art in Britain. Influenced by Roger Fry’s seminal 1910 exhibition ‘Manet and the Post-Impressionists’ in London, they experimented with bold colour, simplified shapes and rhythmic lines, pushing post-impressionist techniques to the limit and producing some of the earliest abstract works in the country. Their experimental side is seen in Bell’s Studland Beach c.1912 and Grant’s Group at Asheham 1913, which both depict their circle of friends. Paintings of the same subject, such as Bell’s Still Life on Corner of a Mantelpiece 1914 and Grant’s The Mantelpiece 1914, hang side by side to reveal a shared visual language.
3. Art you could live with, including the Famous Women Dinner Service
The pair broke down the boundaries between art and everyday life, and the show brings together furniture, ceramics and textiles decorated with their modernist designs. Bell and Grant joined the Omega Workshops, a design enterprise founded in 1913 with a communal ethos, as directors, creating designs for ceramics, fans, lampstands, chairs, tables and wardrobes. You’ll also see commissions including Bell’s book cover designs for her sister Virginia Woolf and Grant’s murals depicting scenes of summertime leisure. A highlight is one of their rare joint projects, the landmark feminist Famous Women Dinner Service 1932–34, made up of 50 hand-painted Wedgwood plates celebrating figures from Jane Austen to Cleopatra.
4. The Charleston studio, relocated to London
For the very first time, the studio the artists shared until 1939 has been relocated from Charleston to Tate Britain while the house undergoes conservation work, in what Tate describes as a once-in-a-lifetime restaging. It offers a snapshot of the duo’s shared vision, one in which art and everyday life are indivisible. By the 1920s, Bell and Grant had settled into a stable, nontraditional family unit at Charleston, and paintings such as Bell’s Interior with the Artist’s Daughter c.1935–36 and Grant’s The Hammock 1921–23 convey the serene life of family, friends and art making there. After the First World War, their travels also inspired paintings along the Seine in Paris and landscapes across the South of France, Italy and Spain.
5. An unconventional life, plus talks and workshops
Bell and Grant shared a home for over 50 years and a daughter, Angelica, while Bell had an open marriage with art critic Clive Bell and Grant predominantly had relationships with men. The exhibition explores the insecurities and emotional conflict that came with this, and shows rarely seen erotic male nudes by Grant that remained hidden for many years. There’s a full events programme too, beginning with the exhibition talk The Lives of Artists on 17 November, with curator Thomas Kennedy and Dr Darren Clarke of Charleston. Artist Jane McCall runs lampshade painting workshops on 21 November and 23 January, and textile designer Molly Mahon leads block printing sessions on 13 and 20 March 2027.
Visit
Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury
12 November 2026 – 11 April 2027
Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG
Open daily 10.00–18.00
Tickets: tate.org.uk or +44 (0)20 7887 8888
Free for Tate Members; £5 for 16–25s with Tate Collective (free to join)
Audio guide: £5
Exhibition talk: 17 November, 19.00–21.00, £15 (concessions available)
Lampshade painting workshop: 21 November and 23 January, 10.30–15.00, £175 (£150 for members)
Block printing workshop: 13 and 20 March 2027, 11.00–14.00, £120 (£95 for members)