Vanessa Bell (1879-1961)

The fine group of flint and brick farm buildings next to Charleston was the subject of innumerable paintings, from various viewpoints, by Grant and Bell (as well as by Roger Fry). Bell’s first painting made at Charleston shows the pond and top of the granary (1916; Charleston). In this work we see more of the building including, to the left, a series of stalls serving the farms’s cart horses, a haystack and a track going up to the foot of Firle Beacon. The granary was pulled down by the Firle Estate in the early 1970s.

We are very grateful to Richard Shone for preparing this catalogue entry.