Papers of Arthur Clive Heward Bell (1881-1964), art critic

Clive Bell was born in Shefford, Berkshire in 1881, the son of a civil engineer. He was educated at Marlborough and came up to Trinity in 1899. While at Cambridge Bell made friends with Leonard Woolf, Thoby Steven and Lytton Strachey and was thus at the heart of the Bloomsbury circle. He graduated with a second class in the Historical Tripos in 1903 and spent the following year in Paris studying the Old Masters at the Louvre. In 1907 he married Vanessa, daughter of Sir Leslie Stephen, with whom he had two children.

Bell collaborated with Roger Fry and Desmond MacCarthy on the first Post-expressionist exhibition at the Grafton Gallery and and wrote the introduction for the English Group of the second.

Bell's most influential publication was Art (1914) of which much had been previously published in journals. His other publications include Landmarks in nineteenth-century painting (1927), Civilization an essay (1928), Proust (1928) and Enjoying pictures (1934). He died in 1964.

Manuscript and typescript drafts of articles, lectures, correspondence and presscuttings

Given by Professor Quentin Bell

The papers passed from Quentin Bell, Clive's son, to Trinity College library in 1975

Where possible, this list follows the draft catalogue of the papers made by Quentin Bell

Please cite as Trinity College Library, Cambridge: BELL

Bell, Clive, Old friends: personal recollections