vintage (art)

Duncan James Corrowr Grant (1885 – 1978) was a British painter and designer of textiles, potterty and theatre sets and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Born in Rothiemurchus, Scotland, Grant studied art at the world-renowned Slade School of Fine Art in London and in Italy and Paris. He was a cousin, and for some time a lover, of writer and critic Lytton Strachey who introduced him to the Bloomsbury Group where he met the revolutionary economist John Maynard Keynes, they became lovers. Grant was influenced by French Post-Impressionism, his subjects were landscapes and portraits; with Roger Fry and Vanessa Bell he founded in 1913 the design enterprise Omega Workshops which produced mural paintings, ceramics, textiles, mosaics, stained glass, the products were in general expensive, and aimed at an exclusive market. Grant had a relationship with Vanessa Bell and for a while moved in with her and her two sons by her husband Clive Bell, an art critic; in 1916 he set up a fruit farm in Suffolk with his new lover David Garnett, writer and critic. In 1935 Grant was selected along with other prominent British artists to provide works of art for the famous ship Queen Mary but, after his paintings was installed, Company's directors during the first inspection immediately rejected them and ordered them removed. Vanessa very much wanted a child by Duncan Grant, and became pregnant in the spring of 1918. Although it is generally assumed that Duncan's sexual relations with Vanessa ended in the months before the daughter Angelica was born, they continued to live together for more than 40 years. Poet Paul Roche took care of him in his latest years, Grant died in Roche's home in 1978.