portrait of Leonard Woolf by Roger Fry

The Block Museum in Evanston currently has an exhibit of work by the Bloomsbury Group, a loose association of friends, colleagues and lovers that included among others, the writer Virginia Woolf (once portrayed by Nicole Kidman wearing a prosthetic nose in the movie The Hours, but perhaps better know as the author of Mrs. Dalloway) and her sister, the painter Venessa Bell, art critic Clive Bell, the economist John Maynard Keynes, artist Roger Fry, writer E.M. Forster and historian Lytton Strachey... and other interesting folks. The exhibit is free, and runs through March 14.

The cultural impact this group had on the art, literature, decorative arts and in Keynes’ case, economic theory, of the first half of the 20th Century in the English-speaking world and beyond, is hugely significant in retrospect. In their own times, the various members of this community were thought to be highly controversial. None of the Bloomsbury men served in WWI, choosing to be Conscientious Objectors instead. Many in the group had what were unconventional lifestyles for their times. (That means they were gay and/or slept around and often did not have regular jobs and sometimes wore funny clothes. )

Continue reading “Hangin’ with Bloomsbury Group at the Block Museum” »