Design for a Window Seat at Charleston

Vanessa Bell was a prominent member of the Bloomsbury Group, an intellectual circle that also included Clive Bell, Roger Fry, Duncan Grant and Virginia Woolf (Bell's sister). In 1913-19 the group sponsored the Omega Workshops, an avant-garde applied arts cooperative deeply rooted in the Arts and Crafts movement. Many scholars compare the bold, colorful style of Bell's workshop textiles, ceramics, furniture, and book jackets to that of Henri Matisse. For the remainder of her life Bell worked as both a painter and a designer, often collaborating with Grant on large-scale projects such as the interior of her Charleston farmhouse, for which this window-seat cover was made.