Vol 5: Sappho & Greta & Elizabeth & Jezebel & George.
Decades before Judy Chicago’s “Dinner Party,” Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant created the “The Famous Women Dinner Service,” which featured dozens of hand-painted portraits on Wedgwood ceramic plates. Created in the early 1930s, the series was revolutionary in that it showcased women from various backgrounds and time periods, all meticulously researched and lovingly depicted. It’s very dated (the Queen of Sheba plate gives me pause) but it’s also lovely, colorful and whimsical and full of joy. I had a really hard time deciding which plate portrait to feature. There are so many good ones! But George had the kindest eyes, and her image seemed to have so much personality, so I chose her.
I am not an expert in the Bloomsbury group, but I’ve recently become interested in their decorative works of art. They’re probably most famous for their writers—Vanessa Bell was sister to Virginia Woolf and friend to E.M. Forster—but I’ve fallen hardest for Vanessa’s work. Alongside her lover, post-impressionist painter Duncan Grant, she turned their shared house into this wild, glorious work of art, from top to bottom. The dinner service is just one example of their work, and it’s captivating. It reminds me a bit of the New Yorker cartoons (put those on a buncha plates?) in its significance. Grant and Bell were rendering all these highly important people in quick, loose strokes, capturing them on china. They treated queens and writers with equal reverence, but they did only choose famous women, and gazing at the plates, you’re confronted with the fact that women get famous for so many tragic things. You see who gets a voice, and who doesn’t.
But still, it’s such a fun work. And god, I couldn’t help it but include another image. Greta Garbo!!!! Ahhhhhhhh!
If you want to see a huge image of the plates, click here and zoom in. It’s fun to scroll around and see all the faces. Here’s a cool article on Grant and Bell, and here’s a link to the Charleston House. I’ve never been to the UK but someday, when this is all over, I’m going to the Charleston House to see it for myself.
