The Bloomsbury Poet & The Cambridge Photographer: Julian Bell & Lettice Ramsey
Past display archive
17 September 2012 - 21 April 2013
Room 31: case display
Free
Julian Heward Bell
by Unknown photographer
glossy bromide print, circa 1929
NPG x136465
Julian Bell was born in 1908, the son of the painter Vanessa Bell and her husband, the art critic Clive Bell. He attended King’s College, Cambridge (1927–34), where he contributed to The Venture, and was a member of the intellectual discussion group known as the Apostles. He published two books of poems: Winter Movement (1930) and Work for the Winter (1936).
At Cambridge, Bell formed a relationship with Lettice Ramsey (1898-1985) whose firm Ramsey & Muspratt specialized in photographing the staff and students, many of whom were mutual acquaintances. In 1935 Bell accepted the position of Professor of English at the University of Wuhan in China. He returned to Europe in 1937, anxious to participate in the Spanish Civil War, where he was killed on 18 July 1937.
Photographs in the display by Ramsey & Muspratt include studies of Julian’s father Clive Bell, his brother Quentin Bell and several of his Cambridge circle and the Bloomsbury group with whom he was associated, such as Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry, Maynard Keynes, G.E. Moore, Dadie Rylands and John Cornford.
The display coincides with the publication of Julian Bell: from Bloomsbury to the Spanish Civil War, by Peter Stansky and Williams Abrahams (2012).
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Related portraits
- Vanessa Bell (NPG 4349)
- Guy Burgess (NPG P363(5))
- Donald Maclean (NPG P363(16))
- Marghanita Laski (NPG P363(15))
- Clive Bell (NPG P363(1))
- Quentin Bell (NPG P363(2))
- John Desmond Bernal (NPG P363(3))
- Roger Fry (NPG P363(9))
- Virginia Woolf; Angelica Garnett (NPG P363(21))
- John Cornford; Rachel ('Ray') Peters (NPG P363(7))
- John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes (NPG P363(14))
- Sir John Tresidder Sheppard (NPG P363(20))
- Julian Bell; Vanessa Bell (NPG x136462)
- Julian Bell (NPG x136463)
- Julian Bell with 'Clinker' the dog (NPG x136464)
- Julian Bell (NPG x136465)
- Richard Bevan Braithwaite (NPG x31078)
- Hugh Sykes Davies (NPG x31079)
- Julian Bell (NPG x136467)
- Julian Bell (NPG x136468)
- Vanessa Bell (NPG x136466)
- G.E. Moore (NPG x31082)
- Dadie Rylands (NPG x31086)
- Ann Davies Synge (née Stephen) (NPG x31090)
- (Joan) Pernel Strachey (NPG x31089)
Related sitters
- (Arthur) Clive Heward Bell
- Julian Bell
- Quentin Claudian Stephen Bell
- Vanessa Bell (née Stephen)
- John Desmond Bernal
- Richard Bevan Braithwaite
- Guy Burgess
- John Cornford
- Hugh Sykes Davies
- Roger Fry
- Angelica Vanessa Garnett (née Bell)
- John Maynard Keynes, Baron Keynes
- Marghanita Laski
- Donald Maclean
- George Edward ('G.E.') Moore
- Rachel ('Ray') Peters
- George Humphrey Wolferstan ('Dadie') Rylands
- Sir John Tresidder Sheppard
- (Joan) Pernel Strachey
- Ann Davies Synge (née Stephen)
- Virginia Woolf (née Stephen)