page_title: Duncan Grant
section_title: Art education and European influence
hierarchical_section_title: Duncan Grant / Early life / Art education and European influence
caption_attribution_description: English: Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873-1938), vintage snapshot print/NPG Ax141298. Jean de Menasce; Vanessa Bell (née Stephen); Duncan Grant; Eric Siepmann, 1922
context_page_description: Duncan James Corrowr Grant was a British painter and designer of textiles, pottery, theatre sets and costumes. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group.
  His father was Bartle Grant, a "poverty-stricken" major in the army, and much of his early childhood was spent in India and Burma. He was a grandson of Sir John Peter Grant, 12th Laird of Rothiemurchus, KCB, GCMG, sometime Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. Grant was also the first cousin twice removed of John Grant, 13th Earl of Dysart.
context_section_description: From c 1899/1900 to 1906 Grant lived with his aunt and uncle, Sir Richard and Lady Strachey and their children. When Grant was younger, he accompanied Lady Strachey to "picture Sunday" which gave him the opportunity to meet with eminent painters. Lady Strachey was able to persuade Grant's parents that he should be allowed to pursue an education in art. In 1902 Grant was enrolled by his aunt at Westminster School of Art; he attended for the next three years. While at Westminster, Grant was encouraged in his studies by Simon Bussy, a French painter and lifelong friend of Matisse, who went on to marry Dorothy Strachey.
  In the winter of 1904–5 Grant visited Italy where, commissioned by Harry Strachey, he made copies of part of the Masaccio frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, in the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence. Grant also made a study of the Portrait of Federigo da Montefeltro, one half of the diptych by Piero della Francesca in the Uffizi and was greatly impressed by the frescoes of Piero in the Basilica of San Francesco, Arezzo. On his return, at the advice of Simon Bussy, Grant made a copy of the Angel musicians in Piero's Nativity in the National Gallery, London.
  Grant was introduced to Vanessa Bell (then Vanessa Stephen) by Pippa Strachey at the Friday Club in the autumn of 1905. From 1906, thanks to a gift of £100 from an aunt, Grant spent a year in Paris studying at the Académie de La Palette, Jacques-Émile Blanche's school. During this period he visited the Musée du Luxembourg and saw, among other paintings, the Caillebotte bequest of French Impressionists.
  In January 1907, and again in the summer of 1908, Grant spent a term at the Slade School of Art. In 1908, Grant painted a portrait of John Maynard Keynes, who he had met the previous year, while the two were on holiday in Orkney. A year later, the pair would share rooms on Belgrave Road.
  In 1909 Grant visited Michael and Gertrude Stein in Paris and saw their collection that included paintings by, among others, Picasso and Matisse. In the summer, with an introduction from Simon Bussy, Grant visited Matisse himself, then living at Clamart, Paris.
caption: Lady Ottoline Morrell (1873–1938), vintage snapshot print/NPG Ax141298. Jean de Menasce; Vanessa Bell (née Stephen); Duncan Grant; Eric Siepmann, 1922
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