Duncan Grant
Great BritainBiography of Duncan Grant
Early Life and EducationDuncan Grant, a Scottish artist, was born in northern Scotland and spent his childhood in India. He studied painting at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, as well as in Paris and Italy. Grant was strongly influenced by the artist Roger Fry, with whom he collaborated.
Artistic Career
In addition to portrait and landscape painting, Grant also engaged in ceramic art, fabric painting, and theatrical design. In the 1920s, he was a member of the influential New English Art Club, along with Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, and Mark Gertler.
Relationships and Personal Life
As a close relative (cousin) of psychoanalyst James Strachey and writer/historian Lytton Strachey, Grant was associated with the influential Bloomsbury Group. He developed close friendships with poet Rupert Brooke and mountaineer George Mallory. Grant had romantic relationships with economist John Maynard Keynes and artist David Garnett.
Despite his homosexuality, Grant formed a long-term relationship with artist Vanessa Bell, sister of literary figure Virginia Woolf, prior to the First World War. They rented a house together in Charleston, Sussex in 1916, where they established an artistic workshop. They had a daughter named Angelica in 1918, although their sexual relationship had ended before her birth. Nevertheless, the couple continued to live together until Vanessa's death in 1961, while Grant also maintained relationships with men during this time.
Legacy
Duncan Grant was buried alongside Vanessa Bell in the churchyard of St. Peter's Church in Firle, East Sussex.
