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Supporting museums Art we've helped buy Iceland Poppies
Iceland Poppies Iceland Poppies

Iceland Poppies

Vanessa Bell

Art Funded
2007
Dimensions
53 x 44 cm
Art Fund grant
£20,000 (Total: £200,000)
Vendor
Private collection
This rare example of Bell's early work hung at Charleston from the 1930's until 1978.

Considered one of her finest paintings, the artist's biographer Frances Spalding has commented on the 'cool silvery tonality and concentrated mood' of the composition. Bell would have been aware of the association of poppies with opium and sleep, reinforced in the painting by the presence of the medicine bottle. There may also be an autobiographical reading in the symbolic arrangement of the three vessels, and the two white poppies slightly distanced from the third, red flower.

Provenance

The artist; Duncan Grant; Private collection.

Oil on canvas

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Charleston

The Charleston Trust, near Firle, LEWES, East Sussex, BN8 6LL
01323 811 626
Website

Opening times

Wed -Sun and Bank Holiday Mondays: 10am-5pm

Art we’ve helped buy at Charleston

Significant Form
 Acquired 2003
Self-portrait
 Acquired 1985
Self Portrait in a Turban
 Acquired 1996
Portrait of John Maynard Keynes
 Acquired 2005
One of Madame Villain's Sons
 Acquired 2002
Iceland Poppies
 Acquired 2007
Flowers in Front of a Window
 Acquired 1993
Charleston Farmhouse
 Acquired 1992

Funded in 2007, Iceland Poppies was restored to Charleston where it had previously hung for over four decades. A rare early work by Vanessa Bell, the understated symbolism and 'concentrated mood' of this still life suggest an autobiographical reading.

Portrait of John Maynard Keynes (funded in 2005) was painted by his sometime lover Duncan Grant during the First World War. It purportedly shows Keynes drafting an all-important telegram to America to obtain the loan that would secure Britain's survival.

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Image credit

1 . Iceland Poppies

© Estate of Vanessa Bell courtesy of Henrietta Garnett

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