Legacy: Photographs by Vanessa Bell and Patti Smith

 Join exhibition co-curator Sarah Milroy as she discusses the artistic connection between Patti Smith and Vanessa Bell:

Included in your ticket to Vanessa Bell or the Permanent Collection.

A special display bringing together photographs by Vanessa Bell and the American writer, artist and musician, Patti Smith (b. 1946).

Smith has long been drawn to Bell's Charleston farmhouse in Sussex. Her black and white Polaroid photographs sensitively capture the lingering remains of the life Bell lead there - in particular with her life companion, Duncan Grant.

Bell's own photograph albums include pictures from her childhood summers in St Ives and of her own young family and the circle of leading intellectuals and artists that surrounded her throughout her life.

While Smith's photographs depict places abandoned to the forces of time, Bell's teem with a host of characters, captured by her sharp eye and framed by her keen compositional instincts. Seen together, the photographs offer two different artistic visions which both capture a lasting Bloomsbury legacy.

Watch below as Patti talks about her residency at Charleston:

Official Paint Partner

Image Credits: Patti Smith, Paint brushes, Duncan Grant’s studio, 2008, Gelatin silver print, edition of 10, 10 x 8 in (25.4 x 20.32 cm) © Patti Smith. Courtesy of the artist and Robert Miller Gallery. Vanessa Bell’s library, Duncan Bell’s painting of Vanessa Bell in her mother’s dress, 2006, © Patti Smith. Courtesy the artist and Robert Miller Gallery. Brandon Camp, 1913. Photographs by Vanessa Bell and others, in Vanessa Bell’s album, Tate (TGA 9020/3) © Tate Archive, London 2016. Portrait of Patti Smith (detail) © Jesse Dittmar