CHARLESTON FARMHOUSE, A PHOTO ESSAY, PART FOUR, INTERIORS, THE STUDIO

 

"Making things -- visual or literary -- was Bloomsbury's dominating passion. It was also, in a paradoxical way, its link to the nineteenth century past that it was at such pains to repudiate."

Janet Malcolm from A House Of One's Own

Above, Stephen Tomlin's Bust Of Virginia Woolf

From the official Charleston website: 

https://www.charleston.org.uk/object/3128-2/

This bust of Virginia Woolf which sits atop the chest of drawers in the studio is by the British sculptor Stephen Tomlin – a friend of the Bloomsbury group. He was bi and enjoyed many love affairs within the group. Fellow artist, Duncan Grant, and the writer Lytton Strachey were among his lovers. Frances Partridge, a writer also closely associated with the group, described him as a heartbreaker.

He was a talented sculptor and made portrait busts of several of his friends. In 1931, he asked to sculpt a portrait of Virginia Woolf, but the process didn’t exactly go smoothly. Firstly, Virginia hated being looked at and needed much persuading to even sit for the portrait. Secondly, with so many demands on her time, it became – Vanessa Bell recalled – ‘quite impossible for her to get half an hour free from her friends and admirers.’ In the end a frustrated Virginia decided to call it a day. The original plaster bust remains here and despite the struggle, it captures a good likeness.

Tomlin died in 1937, aged only 35 – ill health exacerbated by alcoholism and poor mental health. Virginia remarked it was a ‘tragic, wasted life’. His busts of Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant are also on display in the house, and his sculpture of David Garnett is in the Orchard.

Though the photographer is unknown, the larger photograph above, atop the shelf to the viewer's left, is of Vaslav Nijinksy

"During my tour of Charleston, I had been struck by the amount of space Clive occupied in the house -- he had a downstairs study, an upstairs library, a bedroom, and his own bathroom. They are decorated with Duncan's and Vanessa's usual painted panels, windowsills, bed boards, and bookcases -- but they are more elegant and more luxurious. Clive had evidently wanted his little comforts and conveniences, and he had got them."

Janet Malcolm from A House Of One's Own

"We should have felt it to be not merely wrong, but unpleasant not to work every morning for seven days a week and for about eleven months a year. Every morning, therefore, at about 9:30 after breakfast each of us, as if moved by a law of unquestioned nature, went off and 'worked' until lunch at 1. It is surprising how much one can produce in a year, whether of buns or books or pots or pictures."

Leonard Woolf, Autobiograpy Volume 4