Artist’s letters reveal an ‘irreverent’ view of Mass Observation
Social historian and author Virginia Nicholson explored a lesser-known aspect of the work of the Mass Observation for a lecture to celebrate the historical archive’s 75th anniversary.
Capturing ordinary lives: Graham Bell and Humphrey Spender on the roof of Mere Hall art gallery in Bolton. (Credit: Bolton Library and Museum)
During her talk at the University of Sussex on 8 December, she revealed that one of the MO’s ‘artists in residence’ during the initial Worktown project in Bolton had been an early boyfriend of her mother (Anne Olivier Bell).
The artist, Graham Bell (no relation), who had been invited by MO’s Tom Harrisson to capture scenes of the ordinary lives of the people of Bolton, described his time in the town in a series of letters to his girlfriend.
In her lecture, Virginia quoted from the unpublished letters of 1938 and showed illustrations from Bell’s sketchbooks - the first time either of these sources have been made public.
Virginia discovered the connection while interviewing her mother about her wartime memories for her most recent book, Millions Like Us: Women’s lives in war and peace, 1939-1949.
She said: “It was fascinating to delve into this lesser-known aspect of MO. Graham Bell’s letters to her are full of insights, and cast an irreverent artist's eye on the Worktown project.”
It appears from the correspondence that Bell seems quickly to have quickly lost any illusions he might have had about life as a Bolton Mass Observer: “Bolton is more undistinguished than words can describe. What with the smell and the thought of possible lodgings, and the difficulty of doing any painting and the poverty of the people and the expensiveness of life and the extraordinary behaviour of the Mass Observers … we remain pretty depressed.”
Bell’s sketch book is now held at Bolton Museum, together with photographs by Humphrey Spender. The finished paintings of Bolton are in public collections in the USA and Canada.
Virginia is the author of several books, including Charleston, A Bloomsbury house and garden, (co-authored with her father, the late Quentin Bell, professor of art history at the University of Sussex and the son of Virginia’s Woolf’s artist sister, Vanessa Bell); Among the Bohemians: Experiments in living 1900-1939; and Singled Out: How two million women survived without men after the First World War.
More information about Mass Observation and the 75th anniversary