Portrait of Duncan

“He (Duncan Grant) is so incredibly full of charm, his genius as an artist seems to overflow so into his life and character & he is so amusing too and odd and unaccountable that lots of people I think don’t see clearly what to me is really his most adorable quality – his honesty – disinterestedness absolute sincerity & simplicity of character which make me depend upon him always.”

Letter from Vanessa Bell to his son Julian Bell, 7 Mar 1937

 

Portrait of Duncan Grant,  Vanessa Bell, c. 1917

 

Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell worked closely on artistic projects and, though Grant would have many parallel relationships with men, they remained close companions for the rest of their lives. In 1918 Vanessa gave birth to Duncan’s child, Angelica.

A Keen Hunter of Butterflies and Moths

Adeline Virginia Woolf (née Stephen) as a child

 
 

“In her childhood Virginia Woolf was a keen hunter of butterflies and moths. With her brothers and sister she would smear tree trunks with treacle to attract and capture the insects, and then pin their lifelike corpses to cork boards, their wings outspread. It was an interest that persisted into her adult life, and when she discovered that I too was a bug hunter, she insisted that we go hunting together in the fields around Long Barn, our house in Kent, two miles from Knole, my mother’s birthplace. I was nine years old.

 
 

Butterfly, Duncan Grant, 1957

 
 

One summer’s afternoon when we were sweeping the tall grass with our nets and catching nothing, she suddenly paused, leaning on her bamboo cane as a savage might lean on his assegai, and said to me: “What’s it like to be a child?” I, taken aback, replied, “Well, Virginia, you know what it’s like. You’ve been a child yourself. I don’t know what it’s like to be you, because I’ve never been grownup.” It was the only occasion when I got the better of her, dialectically.

I believe that her motive was to gather copy for her portrait of James in To the Lighthouse, which she was writing at the time, and James was about my own age. She told me that it was not much use thinking back into her own childhood, because little girls are different from little boys. “But were you happy as a child?” I asked.

 

Excerpt from Virginia Woolf by Nigel Nicolson

Like Father… (Artists)

English author, critic and mountaineer Leslie Stephen and Virginia Woolf

 
 

Painter Lucian Freud with his daughter, fashion designer Bella Freud

 
 

Gerolamo “Gimmo” Etro, the brand’s founder and his four children: Jacopo (manages textiles, leather goods and the home collections), Kean (is responsible for the menswear collections) , Ippolito (the CEO) and Veronica (is responsible for the women’s collections).

 
 

Gabriel García Márquez, his wife Mercedes Barcha, alongside their sons Rodrigo (screenwriter, television and film director) and Gonzalo (graphic designer)

 
 

Spanish fashion designer Adolfo Dominguez and two of her three daughters

 
 

Tommy Hilfiger and His son Richard, a rapper who is known as Ricky Hil

 
 

Alex Bolen, her wife Eliza Bolen, Oscar de la Renta’s step-daughter, and Moisés de la Renta

 
 

Jerry Hall, Oscar De la Renta and his adopted child Moisés, who debuted his very first collection (a limited edition T-shirt line called MDLR for a Spanish chain) in 2010

 
 

Ralph Lauren, his wife Ricky and their children Andrew (film producer and actor), David (Senior Vice President, Advertising, Marketing and Corporate Communications at Polo Ralph Lauren) and Dylan (owner of Dylan’s Candy Bar, which claims to be the largest candy store in the world, based in New York City)

 
 

Pablo and Paloma Picasso

 
 

John and Anjelica Huston

 
 

Henry Fonda with his children Peter and Jane

 
 

Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia and Roman

 
 

Alain Delon and Anthony

 
 

Vincente Minelli and Liza. Photo: Bob Willoughby

 
 

Mel Ferrer with Audrey Hepburn Holding Newborn Sean

 
 

Alfred Hitchcock, Alma Reville and Patricia

 
 

Kelly Curtis, Jamie Leigh Curtis, Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh

 
 

Robert De Niro Sr. (painter) and Robert De Niro Jr.(actor)

 
 

Jaime Haven Voight, Angelina Jolie, and Jon Voight. Photo: Ron Galella

 
 

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and their blended family

 
 

Steve McQueen, Neile Adams, Terry Leslie and Chad

 
 

Jean Paul Belmondo and Patricia

 
 

Heath Ledger and Matilda

A Room of Her Own

Specially dedicated to all the women…

 
 

The title of the essay A Room of One’s Own(1929) comes from Virginia Woolf‘s conception that, ‘a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction’. Woolf notes that women have been kept from writing because of their relative poverty, and financial freedom will bring women the freedom to write; “In the first place, to have a room of her own… was out of the question, unless her parents were exceptionally rich or very noble”. The title also refers to any author’s need for poetic license and the personal liberty to create art. The essay examines whether women were capable of producing, and in fact free to produce work of the quality of William Shakespeare, addressing the limitations that past and present women writers face.

 
 

Portrait of Virginia Woolf by her sister Vanessa Bell (née Stephen)

 
 

Woolf’s father, Sir Leslie Stephen, in line with the thinking of the era, believed that only the boys of the family should be sent to school. Because her father did not believe in investing in the education of his daughters, Woolf was left without the experience of formal schooling. In delivering the lectures outline in the essay, Woolf is speaking to women who have the opportunity to learn in a formal, communal setting. Woolf lets her audience know the importance of their education at the same time warning them of the precariousness of their position in society.
 
In the essay, Woolf constructs a critical and historical account of women writers thus far. Woolf examines the careers of several female authors, including Aphra Behn, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, and George Eliot. In addition to female authors, Woolf also discusses and draws inspiration from noted scholar and feminist Jane Ellen Harrison. Harrison is presented in the essay only by her initials separated by long dashes, and Woolf first introduces Harrison as “the famous scholar… J —- H—- herself”.
 
Alice Walker, to the subject of much criticism, demeaned Woolf’s essay for its exclusion of women of color, and women writers who do not have any means for obtaining the independence of a room of their own.