LIFESTYLEMichelle AdamsJanuary 05, 2022Comment

Inspired By | Bloomsbury Style

LIFESTYLEMichelle AdamsJanuary 05, 2022Comment

The artists garden at Charleston farmhouse. Photographer, Penelope Fewster via Port.

Photograph of family and friends of Vanessa Bell in the walled garden of her home, Charleston farmhouse, in Firle, Sussex. © Tate

The modernist home and studio of the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, Charleston served as the bucolic retreat for some of the 20th century’s most radical artists, writers and thinkers known collectively as the Bloomsbury group. Bloomsbury reacted against current social rituals, "the bourgeois habits ... the conventions of Victorian life." (source) Prominent Bloomsbury members David Garnett, Clive Bell and Maynard Keynes lived at Charleston for considerable periods of time, while Virginia and Leonard Woolf, E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry were frequent visitors. The group gathered at Charleston farmhouse to imagine society differently, and “together pioneered and shaped many of the most important and attractive aspects of modern British life”. (source)

Inspired by Italian fresco painting and the Post-Impressionists, the artists decorated the walls, doors and furniture at Charleston, creating a look unlike any other style of 20th century decoration. “Bloomsbury style involves transforming, upcycling, and decorating everything that surrounds you, from painting the walls and doors to the wood furniture and even lamp bases and lamp shades,” says Lotte Brouwer, editor for Livingetc. The free-spirited style has seen a recent rise in popularity as people are spending more time at home. Below is our guide to bringing the Bloomsbury look home.