The Bloomsbury Group were once famously described by Dorothy Parker as “living in squares and loving in triangles”. Behind these complicated relationships was a network of friendships that enabled the artists of the group to promote their work more effectively than many of their generation. One of the less well-known achievements of Bloomsbury is the founding of the Contemporary Art Society (CAS) in 1909.

Join Julia Musgrove in a talk exploring the role of the Bloomsbury Group in the first thirty years of its existence, via a presentation in our Studio, followed by an on-gallery tour of the exhibition Beyond Bloomsbury : Life, Love and Legacy, to meet some of the personalities involved in Bloomsbury and the Contemporary Art Society, exploring their links to each other.

Julia Musgrave has a Graduate Diploma in the History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and an MLitt in ‘Art, Style and Design: Renaissance to Modernism, c.1450 – c.1930’ from the University of Glasgow. She gained her Ph.D. at the University of York for her research into the involvement of Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury Group, and the social networks of the British art world in the development of the Contemporary Art Society from 1910 to 1939.

The talk will be seated for approx 45 mins before visiting the exhibition Beyond Bloomsbury : Life, Love and Legacy.

Ticket includes gallery admission.

Image credit: Simon Bussy; Vanessa Bell; Duncan Grant by Lady Ottoline Morrell, 1922  © National Portrait Gallery, London