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Vanessa Bell (née Stephen) was one of the key members of the Bloomsbury group, a group of avant-garde artistic individuals who often lived and worked together, embracing an unrestricted and bohemian lifestyle.
In October 1921, Bell visited the South of France with fellow painter Duncan Grant and her children, Quentin, Julian and Angelica.

‘It’s delicious to be in the South – one forgets how nice it is – all the colours and light and space and everything looking so baked through.’[1] - Vanessa Bell

The ‘baked through’ landscapes of Southern France described by Bell are evident in this work. As a result of Bell’s skilfully warm palette, the dry heat of the Mediterranean sun seems to penetrate the present canvas.

Bell, her children and Grant stayed at La Maison Blanche, a large home situated above the town of St Tropez, overlooking the Golfe. The house was owned by Rose Vildrac and her husband Charles whom Bell met through the Paris-based dealer Leopold Zbrowski.[2] It may well be the Golfe that is depicted in the far right of the composition here. Bell dexterously draws the viewer’s eye back toward the distant mass of water through the winding roads which extend back into the distance.

La Maison Blanche was filled with works by André Derain, Maurice de Vlamink and Othon Friesz which undoubtably appealed to Bell’s colourist tendencies. Prior to their arrival, Bell had raised concerns that her work was becoming increasingly similar to Grant’s and consequently laid out plans that the two artists would paint independently during their time in France, in separate rooms. Bell’s biographer, Frances Spaulding, notes that Bell’s self-confidence grew during this period of increased autonomous working.[3]

After their trip, in May 1922, Vanessa exhibited her work at the Independent Gallery, London. By the afternoon after the opening, she had already sold seven pictures and drawings, the most successful of which were the still lifes and interiors she painted in St. Tropez, a further testament to the success of her trip.[4] Roger Fry’s review of the exhibition stated; ‘it is as a colourist’ that she ‘stands out so markedly among contemporary artists’.[5]

[1] Bell, V. (1921) quoted in ‘Vanessa Bell Interior with a Table 1921’, Tate. [online]. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/ar... (Accessed: 18/11/2021).
[2] Shone, R. (1999) The Art of Bloomsbury. London: Tate Gallery Publishing, p. 208.
[3] Spauling, F. (2018) Vanessa Bell: Portraits of the Bloomsbury Artist. London: Tauris Parke, p. 193.
[4] Shone, R. (1976) Bloomsbury Portraits: Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and their circle. London: Phaidon Press, p.218-219.
[5] Fry, R. (1922), ‘Independent Gallery: Vanessa Bell and Othon Friesz’, New Statesman. 3 June 1922, reprinted in Reed 1996, pp. 348–9.