Collection of ‘Bloomsbury Group’ portraits to feature in new exhibition at Sheffield Millennium Gallery

The exhibition, called Beyond Bloomsbury: Life, Love and Legacy, explores the lives and works of an extraordinary group of writers, artists and thinkers, known as the Bloomsbury Group.

Key figures include the great writer and pioneer of feminist thought Virginia Woolf, her sister - painter Vanessa Bell, and the circle of friends that gathered around these young women and became well-known as the ‘Bloomsbury Group’, named after the area of London where they lived in the first decades of the twentieth century.

Primarily drawn from the National Portrait Gallery’s Collection and enhanced with key works from Sheffield Museums and York Museums Trust, this exhibition includes portraits of those most intimately associated with the Bloomsbury Group but also their fascinating friends and colleagues who were not central to the original group.

Kirstie Hamilton, director of programmes at Sheffield Museums, said: “The Bloomsbury Group had a profound impact on British art and literature and their own story is no less compelling than the work they created. We’re delighted to be working with the National Portrait Gallery and York Museums Trust to explore the lives and achievements of those at the group’s heart and the remarkable figures around them.“

Most of the representations are informal and intimate and were often made as tokens of friendship and sometimes of love – when displayed together, they bring to life an intensely creative group of people who were passionate about their work and each other.

The exhibition will open at Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery on November 25.

For information, visit www.museums-sheffield.org.uk