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Julian Bell

5 of 8 portraits of Julian Bell

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Julian Bell

by Helen Morris (née Souter)
postcard print, April 1930
4 3/4 in. x 2 3/4 in. (120 mm x 71 mm) overall
Given by Peter Stansky, 2012
Photographs Collection
NPG x136467

Sitterback to top

  • Julian Bell (1908-1937), Poet; son of Vanessa Bell and Clive Bell. Sitter in 8 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Helen Morris (née Souter) (active 1930s-1960s), Writer and Head of English, Homerton College of Education; wife of History professor Christopher Morris. Artist or producer of 2 portraits.

This portraitback to top

In 1929 Julian embarked on two-year affair with Helen Souter. She was an undergraduate of Girton College, reading English. He wrote to her: 'You are infinitely more important to me than anything else in the world or ever has been' and about her 'Helen and I are established at Charleston in a rather Wordsworthian state of rural bliss, recovering from Cambridge and tripos.' In 1933 she married Christopher Morris, a History don at King's College, and became a teacher of English at Homerton College, Cambridge. Souter wrote on the back of the photograph of Julian: 'We went a walk near Hilton - past the maze and on through fields'.

Placesback to top

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1930back to top

Current affairs

Amy Johnson is the first woman to fly solo to Australia. She flew the 11,000 miles from Croydon to Darwin in a De Havilland Gipsy Moth named Jason and won the Harmon Trophy as well as a CBE for her achievement. She went on to break a number of other flying records, and died while serving in the Air Transport Auxiliary in 1941.

Art and science

Noel Coward's play, Private Lives is first performed. The original run starred Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier as well as Coward himself. Private Lives became Coward's most enduringly successful play.

International

Gandhi leads the Salt March. The march to the coast was a direct protest against the British monopoly on the sale of salt and inspired hordes of Indians to follow him and adopt his methods of Satyagraha (non-violent resistance to the British rule of India).
Stalin orders the 'liquidation of the kulaks (wealthy farmers) as a class' in a violent attempt to centralise control of agriculture and collectivise farming.

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