The Bloomsbury Group, 1910-1920
An exhibition of works from their most radical decade
10 November – 9 December 2026
This winter, Philip Mould & Company presents "Character Changed": The Bloomsbury Group, 1910–1920, an exhibition bringing together works by Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry from their most experimental decade.
The exhibition takes its title from Virginia Woolf’s famous declaration that “on or about December 1910 human character changed.” Deliberately polemical, her remark referred to a genuine turning point in British cultural life. That autumn, Roger Fry’s exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists at London’s Grafton Galleries gave British audiences their first major encounter with the revolutionary work of Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Matisse and their contemporaries. Hugely controversial and divisive for its artistic radicalism, the exhibition proved a revelation for a younger generation of artists, opening up entirely new possibilities for British painting.
“Character Changed” brings together paintings born out of this moment of radical artistic (and character) change.
Drawn predominantly from private collections, the exhibition includes several works not seen in public for decades. Highlights include Vanessa Bell’s Portrait of Duncan Grant (1915), exhibited publicly for the first time, Duncan Grant’s vibrant Still Life in the Garden Room at Charleston (c.1918), and Roger Fry’s Poinsettias in a Vase (c.1915).
The exhibition coincides with Tate Britain’s Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury, to which Philip Mould & Company is lending works.
