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Frances Lincoln published THE book on Charleston in 1997 and it has sold solidly for 20 years first in hardback, also in paperback (and it is about to be revised in paperback for 2018). Charleston - A Bloomsbury House and Garden has sold more than 50k copies in that time. The pb alone has sold 27.5k copies.
Charleston and the Bloomsbury set is a perennially popular subject, and this will be the first book about Charleston's garden, written by the person who knows it best, Mark Divall, the Head Gardener who recreated the garden and worked in it for nearly 25 years.
The garden at Charleston played an enormous role in the creative lives of Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, their family and friends, from 1915 onwards when they leased the house. The garden was the inspiration for hundreds of paintings, decorations, textures, sculptures and patterns created inside and outside the house and on its very fabric. The garden was also the painter's studio for much of this work, Duncan and Vanessa regularly setting up their easels in the garden as they began a day's painting. As the garden evolved, it also became the source material for their work: both artists frequently arranged vases full of flowers cut from the garden to paint in still life. In portraits their sitters would sit in the garden, or inside the house with the garden clearly visible through an open door or window. The garden breathes colour and life to many of their works, and indeed, alongside photographs, the paintings in due course provided Mark Divall with the inspiration for recreating the garden today. Mark was able to identify the plants that inspired Vanessa and Duncan in their paintings and include them in his planting design.
Using contemporary garden photography, hundreds of Duncan's and Vanessa's paintings of the garden and their still lives, photos of themselves, their friends and family from 1915-1961, diaries and journals, this book brings the garden to life at Charleston, as a key player in the creative process.
