© 1961 Estate of Vanessa Bell courtesy Henrietta Garnett/ National Portrait Gallery, London
Vanessa Bell became close friends with the art critic Roger Fry in 1910 and began an affair with him the following year.
This portrait was painted when the lovers spent a short holiday together at Niton, Isle of Wight in 1912. Vanessa was experimenting with a pseudo-pointilliste technique previously used by Duncan Grant which she had named his 'leopard manner'.
Provenance
The Fry family; Anthony d'Offay Gallery, 1984; Mr & Mrs Charles Alcorn, Texas to 1997; Mr Bret Thompson.