Duncan Grant was introduced to Vanessa Bell in the autumn of 1905 at ‘The Friday Club’ by his cousin, Pippa Strachey.1 The connection between the two artists was instant and Grant quickly entered Bell’s close circle of family and friends, who would later come to be known as the Bloomsbury Group. Their creative partnership was to last for more than 50 years and at one point their relationship developed into a brief romantic affair. Over this long period, Grant produced numerous drawings and paintings of Bell, beginning with this work from 1911, the earliest surviving image of her, and ending in an image of her on her deathbed, in 1961.
By 1911, Grant had already become one of the key figures of Bloomsbury: he had exhibited at ‘The Friday Club’ in February, over the summer was invited by Roger Fry to create murals to decorate the dining room of Borough Polytechnic, and by November had moved close to Bell, at 38 Brunswick Square, where he lived with John Maynard Keynes, and Bell’s siblings, Adrian and Virginia Stephen (later Woolf).
Although it was not uncommon for the artist to create drawings on newspaper, it appears that this was his only portrait on this support. Here he has used a torn, creased page from The Times newspaper, dated 7 August 1911, with the headline ‘The Franco-German Negotiations’, to execute this closely cropped view of Bell’s head. The sitter is depicted in profile, the artist’s strong pencil line tracing the outline of her distinctive nose, full lips, large chin, thick neck and elegant Edwardian hairstyle. Detail is centred around the sitter’s face, her skin brought to life by ochre and green tones and features framed by maroon
rhythmical brushstrokes.
The present work is a testimony to Grant’s extraordinarily wide knowledge of European art obtained through his early travels to Italy and France. Most obviously, it is a direct reference to one of the most celebrated Renaissance works of Piero della Francesca, the portrait of Federico da Montefeltro, of which Grant produced a faithful copy during one of his many visits to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.2 Meanwhile, Grant’s colour palette reveals the strong French Post-Impressionist and Fauvist influences of Cézanne and Matisse, whose work the artist was first introduced to while studying in Paris, between 1906–07.

1 The Friday Club, founded by Vanessa Bell, held its first meeting and exhibition in 1905. After 1912 the Club was replaced by the Grafton Group, organised by Roger Fry.
2 Grant’s copy of the Federico da Montefeltro portrait is now housed in the collection of Charleston Trust, Sussex