Description

Quentin Bell, the second son of Vanessa and Clive Bell (his older brother Julian was killed in the Spanish Civil War), came to Leeds University in 1959 as Head (afterwards Professor) of Fine Art. Previously, he had been senior lecturer in Fine Art at King's College, Newcastle where, unusually for that time, history of art and its theory were taught together with practice. Bell brought this thinking to the Leeds Fine Art course which, when he first arrived, comprised purely art history and was offered as part of a general arts degree. In 1967 he left Leeds to become Professor of the History and Theory of Art at Sussex University. He retired in 1975. An author and critic as well as teacher, he published books on, amongst others, Schools of Design and Ruskin (1963), Victorian Artists (1967), Bloomsbury (1968), Virginia Woolf (1972) and the Pre-Raphaelites, A New and Noble School (1982). An accomplished practitioner (he studied art in Paris and Rome, as well as pottery at Burslem School of
Art), he made a prolific output of painting, sculpture, and ceramics throughout his life, producing an oeuvre that is largely characterized by a lyrical and decorative touch, and often imbued with a wry sense of humour and an inclination towards the bizarre.

Physical characteristics

Category: Sculpture

Medium: bronze; terracotta

Object: height 200mm

Accession details

Accession number: LEEUA 1987.065

Accession date: 1987

Credit: © Estate of the Artist

Source: Gift; Winning, Mrs Phyllis