Personal papers of Duncan Grant

This collection comprises correspondence, diaires, writings, notebooks and notes, artwork, printed material and personal items, formerly kept by Duncan Grant.

Duncan James Corrowr Grant (1885-1978), was born in Rothiemurchus, near Aviemore, on 21 January 1885. His early years were spent in India and Burma where his father's regiment was stationed. In 1893, Grant returned to England and lived with his aunt and cousins, the Stracheys, for a number of years. His aunt, Lady Strachey, was an important influence on the young Grant, taking him to visit a number of eminent artists' studios on 'picture Sundays'. Lady Strachey also arranged for Grant to leave school early to attend Westminster School of Art, and in 1906-07, Grant used a £100 legacy from another aunt, to study for a year in Paris at Jacques-Emile Blanche's La Pallete. While in Paris, he copied Chardin in the Louvre and ignored the controversy caused by Fauvism which was taking place in Paris at the time. Living in Paris, amidst one of the most revolutionary moments in the history of painting, Grant continued to paint with sober colours and formal restraint. After returning to London, Grant had a brief affair with his cousin Lytton Strachey which ended painfully when Grant became involved in a more significant relationship with Maynard Keynes. Through his relationship with Keynes, friendship with Virginia Stephens (later Woolf), and an affair with her brother, Adrian, Grant became a leading figure within the Bloomsbury group.

A turning point in Grant's career came in 1910, when he responded to the implications of a French post-impressionist exhibition, mounted by Roger Fry, at the Grafton Galleries in London. He abruptly abandoned his previous pictorial conventions and experimented with an expressive handling of line, colour, and form. His daring inventions quickly earned him a leading position among avant-garde artists in Britain. His most surprising work is his 'Kinetic Abstract Scroll', 1914, which is composed of abstract blocks, grouped in clusters which rise and fall, and was intended to be viewed, like a film, through an aperture as it was wound past. In 1913, he began to work closely with Vanessa Bell in the founding of Roger Fry's Omega workshops, forming a relationship that would endure to the end and, despite Grant being homosexual, would bear him a daughter, Angelica. Grant and Bell enjoyed a creative union, the two artists painting side by side, often in the same studio, admiring but also criticising each others efforts.

After the First World War, Grant, who had become greatly admired as a colourist, produced some of his most integrated compositions when he adopted, temporarily, a sombre, low-tomed palette. His palette regained some of its richness and brilliance during the 1930s as he reached the zenith of his career as an artist, and he and Bell both accepted commissions to paint decorative panels for the new Cunard liner, RMS Queen Mary in 1935. However, Grant's decoratives were rejected as they did not fit with the more lightweight aesthetic found elsewhere in the ship. He continued to accept commissions and in 1941, Grant was made royal designer for industry for his work on printed textiles.

Grant's reputation declined during the 1950s and 1960s until his work was rediscovered by a younger generation in the late 1960s and he began to attract the interest, support and friendship of Tate curator Richard Morphet, and the art historians, Richard Shone and Simon Watney. Grant died at The Stables, Aldermaston, on 8 May 1978.

The papers are arranged as follows:

TGA 20078/1 Correspondence

TGA 20078/2 Writings

TGA 20078/3 Charleston Bulletin

TGA 20078/4 Diaries

TGA 20078/5 Notebooks

TGA 20078/6 Artworks

TGA 20078/7 Personal items

TGA 20078/8 Printed material

TGA 20078/9 Family papers

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