The painter Vanessa Bell initiated a step change in modern British art, bringing the bright palette and bold stylization of the Parisian avant-garde to London. She was a central figure in the Bloomsbury group, alongside members of her family and close circle including Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell, and Duncan Grant.

Vanessa Bell: Modern Living explores Bell's radical approach to art and life through her paintings, prints, and designs for interiors, textiles, book jackets, and more, bringing her work out of the shadow of her male contemporaries while celebrating her collaborative approach. Illustrated by more than one hundred striking images drawn from the V&A's important collection of her work, this engaging overview also considers Bell's unique, artisanal designs for the Omega Workshops, and for Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex, her family residence, foregrounding the home as a crucial site of modernity.