Virginia Woolf; Leonard Sidney Woolf

1 portrait of Virginia Woolf

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© Estate Gisèle Freund / IMEC Images

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Virginia Woolf; Leonard Sidney Woolf

by Gisèle Freund
colour print, 1939
11 3/4 in. x 8 in. (301 mm x 201 mm)
Purchased, 1990
Primary Collection
NPG P439

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  • Gisèle Freund (1912-2000), Photographers. Artist or producer of 6 portraits.

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The novelist with her husband Leonard, author, publisher and political worker. They were photographed at their house in Tavistock Square on 24 June 1939. According to Freund, Virginia Woolf had agreed to the sitting after seeing slides of other writers she had photographed. Virginia Woolf's diary, by contrast, indicates that she was annoyed at being compelled by good manners to accede to the sitting having refused Freund on two previous occasions. The photographs were however admired by Leonard Woolf in 1946.

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Current affairs

Britain goes to war. The German invasion of Poland demonstrated that the policy of appeasement had failed. After refusing to meet Britain's ultimatum to withdraw troops, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The Second World War had begun.

Art and science

The Sutton Hoo burial ship is discovered. Apparently following a dream, Mrs Pretty invited the archaeologist Basil Brown to investigate a series of burial mounds on her estate on the banks of the river Deben in Suffolk. The excavation revealed an Anglo-Saxon burial, uncovering the most significant horde of early medieval artefacts found in Britain (now housed at the British Museum).

International

The Second World War begins. Germany's invasion of Poland prompted Britain and France to declare war forming the core of the Allied powers. As part of the Soviet-Nazi Pact, the Soviet Union joined the war on the German side, helping, with Italy, to form the Axis Powers. Poland was soon overpowered and the Baltic Republics and Finland were invaded by the Soviet Union.

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