Book description
'The best of these Darwins is that they are cut out of rock - three
taps is enough to convince one how immense is their solidarity.' So
wrote Virginia Woolf affectionately of Gwen Raverat, the granddaughter
of Charles Darwin.
In this first full biography, Frances Spalding looks beyond the
artist Gwen Raverat's childhood memoir; Period Piece, and
creates a fascinating and moving portrait of Charles Darwin's
granddaughter. She explores her Darwin inheritance; her conflicts when
she moves beyond her home environment to enter the Slade School of
Art; her encounter with post-Impressionism; and her friendships with
Stanley Spencer, Rupert Brooke and members of the Bloomsbury set. At
each stage, Gwen's artistic creativity is interwoven with her
relationships and circumstances. She helps revive the medium of
wood-engraving and with her husband, Jacques Raverat, celebrates the
South of France in the art they produce while living in Venice.
Drawing on a huge cache of unpublished papers, Spalding brings us a
life lived with bravery, humour; realism and integrity, surrounded by
a remarkable cast of relatives, friends and associates.
Frances Spalding is an art historian, critic and biographer. Her
books include acclaimed biographies of the painters Roger Fry, Vanessa
Bell, Duncan Grant, and Stevie Smith. She has written a history of the
Tate Gallery and was the editor of Charleston magazine. She is a fellow
of the Royal Society of Literature and Honorary Fellow of the Royal
College of Art.
