Charleston House
I first visited Charleston House in Sussex about 5 years ago when my middle son was in University in Brighton. I was completely blown away by everything about it. I remember getting to the end of the house tour and to the studio room, and felt the overwhelming urge to just cry - I just found the whole thing very emotional. The personalities that had lived there had invested so much creatively into every single room and to every item - you can just feel that intense investment and the history that exists there. It’s had a huge influence on my painting - the first piece of furniture I painted was in homage to the Bloomsbury group and Charleston - and it’s no accident that I fell across Annie Sloan chalk paints at about the same time - she also, as have many others, been influenced by Charleston. I’ve been back for a second visit since, and was due to visit again in March, just as lockdown happened. Lets hope that they get through this difficult Covid period and open again very soon - I urge everyone to go and visit at least once.
The Bloomsbury group included some of the twentieth century’s most pioneering artists, writers and thinkers – people who believed in debate, creativity, beauty, innovation and truth and whose work was guided by a sense of fun, freedom and irreverence. At Charleston we aim to further the Bloomsbury group’s experimentalism, internationalism and anti-establishment, their new ideals for living and belief that the arts and freedom of expression are fundamental.
A visit to Charleston is a liberating experience. The presence of Charleston’s Bloomsbury group occupants is still palpable today, as is their art, and the ideas that, from the rural tranquillity of the South Downs, helped to shape our society.
The decorated interiors and artists’ garden are more than a museum. Charleston’s entire cultural programme remains true to its origins whilst encouraging contemporary creativity.
Charleston House offer a haven for curious minds to immerse themselves in new ideas and provide an open door to explore personal freedoms and engage in Charleston’s multi-faceted heritage. The world-leading collection of Bloomsbury art and archives is a beacon of excellence in conservation and interpretation that is open to everyone. Today Charleston is both daring and accessible.
The talented staff and volunteers use their own creativity and experience to make Charleston a living experience for all. Charleston House support community learning and engagement; they commission contemporary artists, writers and thinkers to share new ideas in the spirit of Charleston’s Bloomsbury group inhabitants; and they aim to provide a life-enhancing environment for debate, creativity and excitement.
Charleston House is an English farmhouse nestled deep in the Sussex countryside. In 1916 Charleston became the home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant; two of the most radical and influential British artists of the twentieth century. The house had an open-door policy and frequently hosted fellow intellectuals including Virginia Woolf, E.M Forster and Roger Fry. Over the next 50 years they transformed Charleston, from an unremarkable seventeenth century farmhouse, into a decorative masterpiece – bringing the experimental language of modernism into their home.