Charleston Redevelopment review: Bloomsbury Set hangout gets an upgrade

Charleston Redevelopment                                                           East Sussex

Rating:

The farmhouse at Charleston remains as artfully cluttered as ever. It’s kept in a state as close as possible to how it was when the artist-couple Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant resided here, from 1916 till the former’s death in 1961. 

Bell was the sister of author Virginia Woolf, and Charleston – in the Sussex Downs – became the rural hangout of the free-thinking, free-loving intellectual set from London, the Bloomsbury Group. (John Maynard Keynes wrote The Economic Consequences Of The Peace in an upstairs bedroom.)

The low-ceilinged house was the residence of artist-couple Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant from 1916 until 1961. Above: Grant’s studio

Since 1986, Charleston has been open to the public, and each summer 27,000 visitors enjoy a look around the low-ceilinged house, packed with Bell and Grant’s paintings, ceramics, textiles and furniture – many of which they themselves designed for Bloomsbury pal Roger Fry’s firm, Omega Workshops. 

Following an £8 million redevelopment, the area immediately surrounding the farmhouse has been transformed. Two flint-walled barns, which were damaged by fire in the Eighties, have been converted into an events space and restaurant respectively.

Nearby, the architects Jamie Fobert – responsible for last year’s first-rate extension of Tate St Ives – have constructed a 200 square metre exhibition space, with a suite of airy galleries. It has opened with three small shows (until January 6), the most noteworthy of which is inspired by Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending novel, Orlando, marking the 90th anniversary of its publication.

The architects Jamie Fobert – responsible for last year’s first-rate extension of Tate St Ives – have constructed a 200 square metre exhibition space, with a suite of airy galleries (above)

In truth, none of the three shows takes the breath away, but the potential is there to stage a cracking, single exhibition in the future.

The architects deserve credit, too, for building a structure that, despite its size, is cleverly tucked away: from whichever direction you approach Charleston, it remains hidden out of view.

The redevelopment has undoubtedly upgraded this as a visitor attraction – yet still we can keep the illusion that, at any moment, Bell and Grant might pop out of the farmhouse to greet us.

 

Sir Richard Wallace: The Collector 

The Wallace Collection, London                                                     Until Jan 6

Rating:

Above: Sir Richard Wallace was the rumoured illegitimate son of the 4th Marquess of Hertford and contributed sizeably to the family art collection

His collection contains masterpieces by Titian, Van Dyck, Canaletto, Rubens, Rembrandt and Velázquez – works that can be seen at his former home in London, free, any day of the week. But still little is known about Victorian art collector Sir Richard Wallace. Rumour has it he was the illegitimate son of the 4th Marquess of Hertford, one of the greatest art collectors of the Victorian era. At an early age Wallace was taken on as an assistant by the marquess, who lived in Paris, and they added sizeably to the family collection that the 1st Marquess had started in the 18th century. Now Sir Richard is the focus of his own exhibition, as 20 objects he personally added to the collection are displayed in a new space for temporary exhibitions at the Marylebone gallery.

In the exhibition there are items such as a silver ostrich statuette from the Bavaria of around 1600 and imperial ceremonial wine cups from China (above)

Marking the 200th anniversary of his birth, the exhibition shows Wallace’s eclectic tastes – after the 4th Marquess died and the collection was bequeathed to him, Sir Richard continued contributing to it, with, in particular, medieval and Renaissance objects, and arms and armour. So in the exhibition there are items such as a silver ostrich statuette from the Bavaria of around 1600 and imperial ceremonial wine cups from China.

Sir Richard’s collection is now housed in Hertford House, Manchester Square, which was his main London townhouse. Above: a gold trophy head

As well as looking beyond Europe for the collection, Sir Richard was keen for a wide range of people to see it and, after the marquess died, he moved the collection to Britain from France and displayed it in east London’s Bethnal Green for two years, where it attracted five million visitors. And he instructed his wife to donate it to the nation on his death, so it is now housed in Hertford House in Manchester Square, which was the couple’s main London townhouse.

Marking the 200th anniversary of his birth, the exhibition shows Wallace’s eclectic tastes. Above: part of a suit of Italian parade armour, one of his passions

Paintings, objects and furniture from France feature significantly in the collection, as does 17th-century Dutch painting – one of the highlights is Frans Hals’s Laughing Cavalier. Hertford House’s exquisite rooms show off such works beautifully, and the new exhibition space and its diverse works only add to a collection described by Wallace Collection director Xavier Bray, with some justification, as ‘the greatest gift ever made to the nation’. 

Dominic Connolly

 

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk