Charleston Farmhouse Talk
Image: Molly Mahon at Charleston Farmhouse
Join us on Wednesday 12 May for an evening of talks celebrating Charleston Farmhouse and the Bloomsbury Group. The talk will focus on the history of farmhouse; the historic living museum to the decorative arts, nestled deep in the Sussex countryside that became the home of Bloomsbury group artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant in 1916. Over the following 50 years, with the help of their friends Virginia Woolf, EM Forster, Roger Fry and many more they transformed Charleston from an unremarkable seventeenth century farmhouse into a masterpiece of interior design and modernist experimentation.
Image: The sitting room at Charleston Farmhouse
Darren Clarke, Rausing Head of Collections, Research and Exhibitions at Charleston will begin by introducing us to the story of Charleston and its making. Annie Sloan and Molly Mahon, both who have a strong connection to Charleston and the artworks of the Bloomsbury group, will share with us how Charleston's creativity continues today and the ways it has inspired their own design practice.
Image: The studio at Charleston Farmhouse
Quite aside from their reputations as painters, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant were among the most fashionable designers in Britain in the 1920s and '30s. Their interiors were featured in Vogue and Charleston remains the most complete surviving example of their work. A treasure-trove of the decorative arts, each of the vibrant and decorative hand-painted rooms, bursts with creativity and a thought provoking aesthetic that has endured to this day as a result of its contemporary outlook on design and thinking. Just as the Bloomsbury group covered every surface of Charleston’s interiors, in the latest issue of Selvedge — Issue 99 Home — we examined every surface of the home. As well as looking at hand-painted Chinese wallpaper and the magic of carpets, we reflect on the home as a place where, especially in recent times, we feel safe, we undertake work of all sorts, and where we simply do as we please and find creative expression.
Read more about the Charleston Farmhouse and the Bloomsbury Group in Selvedge Issue 99 Home. New subscribers are eligible for a free gift of an Annie Sloan Charleston Keepsake Kit.
Book tickets for our talk on the event page: Charleston Farmhouse, Virtual Event with Annie Sloan, Molly Mahon and Darren Clarke