Monday, January 24, 2011

Bloomsbury Walk

Next assignment: The Bloomsbury Walk, following the path and lives of many from the Bloomsbury group (like Virginia Wolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, and Lytton Strachey). First up, Fitzroy Square, down to No. 21--the home of Duncan Grant and Maynard Keynes from 1909-1911.
Down to No. 29--where Virginia Stephen and her younger brother Adrian lived after Vanessa's marriage to Clive Bell.
George Bernard Shaw also lived here, prior to Virginia.

Around the corner to No. 33--where the Omega Workshops were located from 1913-1919. According to their founder, Roger Fry, the aim of said workshops was "trying to keep the spontaneous freshness of primitive and peasant work while satisfying the needs and expressing the feeling of modern cultivated man."
Down Grafton Way, down to Gower Street, we found the University College London, where several Bloomsbury artists, including Vanessa Bell, attended the Slade School of Art on this campus.
Totally reminded me of Harry Potter, not really sure why.
We decided to take a detour and go inside.
Where we found the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, one of the founders of the university... or at least what is left of him... apparently he asked that his body be preserved within the university--fortunately they have removed the head and placed it in the college safe, so the head we saw was just a wax replica, by still pretty creepy.


And of course, we had to stop for the typical London-Telephone-Booth-Picture.

Then on to the home of Lytton Strachey,
Many of the Bloomsbury Group members in the neighborhood,
and John Maynard Keynes.
Then last, but certainly not least, where T. S. Eliot worked as director for the publishers Faber and Faber from 1925 onward.


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