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Although of another place and time, the Bloomsbury group confronted issues that are remarkably current: international crises, war, the value of craft in an industrialized world, women’s rights, environmental protection, and the search for the true, the good, and the beautiful in their art and their lives. A Room of Their Own: The Bloomsbury Artists in American Collections, an exhibition catalog produced by the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, examines the group’s responses to these issues, providing a valuable mirror on how people can address similar concerns today. A hundred years after the Bloomsbury group was established, their story still resonates and brings together a variety of interests across many artistic and intellectual pursuits.
The exhibition will include two hundred watercolors, drawings, books from the Hogarth Press, decorative works from the Omega Workshops, and other works.
The exhibition catalog features essays by several leading Bloomsbury scholars. Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, author of a major 1995 Carrington biography, provides a personal overview of artistic Bloomsbury. Nancy E. Green, the Johnson Museum curator and organizer of the exhibition, explores the Victorian-era influence on sisters Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Mark Hussey’s essay discusses the cultural differences behind how British and American audiences experience Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury group. Benjamin Harvey offers “An Appreciation of Bloomsbury’s Books and Blocks.” Christopher Reed presents personal stories behind many of the prominent Bloomsbury collectors in North America. The book is illustrated with full-color plates of the two hundred exhibited works, as well as numerous color figures of comparative works and documentary photographs.
Exhibition Itinerary
This catalog accompanies an exhibition organized by the Herbert F. Johnson
Museum of Art at Cornell University.
Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
December 18, 2008–April 5, 2009
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
July 18–October 18, 2009
Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, California
November 7–December 13, 2009
Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
January 15–March 14, 2010
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts
April 3–June 15, 2010
Palmer Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania
July 6–September 26, 2010
Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Dartmouth College
Nancy E. Green, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University
Benjamin Harvey, Mississippi State University
Mark Hussey, Pace University
Christopher Reed, The Pennsylvania State University
Reviews
"This book, and the exhibition it accompanies, showcases how American admirers of the writing of Woolf, Strachey, and their circle acquired art that complemented these literary interests. . . . Five essays from a team of arts and letters specialists present a useful survey of the entire Bloomsbury project and its American context. The book features over 250 illustrations, most in color. Recommended."—W. S. Rodner,
Choice, September 2009
About the Author
Nancy E. Green is the Gale and Ira Drukier Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. Christopher Reed is Associate Professor of English and Visual Culture at The Pennsylvania State University.
