Duncan Grant: A Biography [Paperback]

Frances Spalding (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 6, 1998

Duncan Grant was one of the best-known names on the British art scene, and the most charismatic member of the Bloomsbury set. This biography follows his life through great changes in society and art, from Edwardian times to the 1970s.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Biographer of Bloomsbury luminaries Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry, British art historian Spalding has produced a captivating biography of another key Bloomsbury figure, post-impressionist painter and designer Duncan Grant (1885-1978). Born in the Scottish Highlands and raised in India until he moved to London at age 14, Grant emerges as a mercurial, impractical, often histrionic and jealous man, who was also endearingly down-to-earth and indifferent to fame, and who hobnobbed with people at all levels of society, always eager to partake of new experiences. Drawing on a trove of Grant's unpublished memoirs, letters and diaries, Spalding candidly illuminates Grant's complex private life, from his relationship with painter Vanessa Bell (Virginia Woolfe's sister), with whom he had a daughter, Angelica, in 1918, to his numerous affairs with such men as Lytton Strachey (his cousin), John Maynard Keynes and literary critic David Garnett. In 1942, young Angelica married Grant's ex-lover Garnett, adding yet another twist to the Bloomsburies' ever-changing musical chairs of sexual and romantic partnerships. Enlivened by photographs and art reproductions (including eight color plates), this engagingly gossipy biography scans Grant's entire oeuvre, from portraits, landscapes and mythological scenes to erotic art, ceramics, costume and set design. Meticulously documenting Grant's daily doings, his travels from Seville to Cyprus, and his encounters with everyone from E.M. Forster to Andre Gide and D.H. Lawrence, Spalding vibrantly conveys the texture of the Bloomsbury group's emotional and creative life.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A full-bodied but strangely affectless biography of the minor English painter and decorative artist. As the Bloomsbury industry continues to expand, its rapidly running up against the law of diminishing returns. With superior, if not definitive, b iographies already in place for all the major figures, only the secondary and tertiary characters are leftthough as second-raters go, Grant is near the top of the pile. But his mild artistic abilities will always be overshadowed by whom he knew and whom h e slept with. Having already written a biography of Grants fellow painter and lover, Virginia Woolfs sister, Vanessa Bell (1983), Spalding is well qualified to delve into the emotional complexities of Grants life. Drawing on letters and diaries, she detai ls his affairs with the leading men of Bloomsbury, from Maynard Keynes to Lytton Strachey to Vanessa Bells brother Adrian Stephen, but the love of his life was Bell. Despite his homosexuality and ongoing affairs and her marriage, they set up house togethe r and had a daughterwho eventually went on to marry one of Grants former lovers, David Garnett. Such polymorphousness has long attracted biographers to Bloomsbury, but Spalding also spends a judicious amount of time on Grants art. She believes that log-ro lling praise from intimates such as Roger Fry and Kenneth Clark, paradoxically, was largely responsible for Grants reputation plummeting in his later years. Unquestionably, Grant was a decent copyist and a reasonable colorist with a good sense of line and form, but his style tended to ebb and flow with whatever was in vogue at the time, so that it is hard to pin down anything in his work as definitively ``Duncan Grant.'' Spaldings biography suffers from a similar problem. Though she has all the facts, she is never quite able to capture the essence of the man. The only thing missing from these hundreds of exhaustively researched pages is Duncan Grant. (8 pages color, 16 pages b&w illustrations) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 570 pages
• Publisher: Random House UK (July 6, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0712666400
• ISBN-13: 978-0712666404
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,839,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pallid bio of Intriguing Painter, February 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Duncan Grant: A Biography (Hardcover)

In many ways the painter Duncan Grant is one of the most intriguing members of the Bloomsbury group. A homosexual, he was lover to many of the celebrated male members of that circle: Lytton Strachey, Maynard Keynes, etc. Yet he also chose to live for 40 years with, (& father a child by), the painter Vanessa Bell. Frances Spalding has perviously written an admirable bio of V. Bell, & Grant's family asked her to tackle Grant, with lukewarm results. To me, the process of painting is unexplainable, the best attempt ever written, to my mind, is Maugham's "Moon & Sixpence,"; Spalding's attempts at describing Grant's artistic processes fall flat, & frankly are boring. More interesting to me are the almost incredible personal events that swirled around Grant; That notable procession of lovers, the extraordinary relationship with Bell, the bizarre fact that Grant had affairs with his Daughter's uncle, future husband, & lover! What did Duncan Grant have that so many people wanted? What did he really think of the curious relationship between himself & Bell & their daughter Angelica (who did not know till she was 18 that she was his daughter.) Why would a woman like Vanessa Bell essentially give up her sexual life to live with Grant? And why did Grant, an enthusiastic homosexual, choose to devote a major portion of his life to this woman? Spalding had complete access to Grant's papers & letters, but her feeble attempts to explain Grant's character (beyond his apparent physical beauty, he is called "charming" so many times that I lost count) are pallid. Prehaps, in the end, apart from Grant's enormous talent for painting-and we get a rather niggardly peek at the work-there was no "there there." Read Spalding's "Vanessa Bell: A Biography" for a sharper view of the people & events surrounding Grant's unusual life, "Duncan Grant" is a disappointment.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent biography, a pleasure to read, November 24, 1999

By 

"auden" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Duncan Grant: A Biography (Paperback)

Marvellous, Spalding's skill is to sketch out the intricate emotional web against the bright bold untouchable figure of the artist. Her achievement is to let that sense of a man living with a craft shine through on every page: the result in an exceptionally honest and warm portrait. Her tone is objective but sympathetic and generous. This biography accomplishes what is, or should be, the biographer's highest goal: it does not come between the reader and the subject.