Quentin Claudian Stephen Bell (19 August 1910 – 16 December 1996) was an English art historian and author.^[1]

Bell was born inLondon, the second and younger son of the art critic and writerClive Bell and the painter and interior designerVanessa Bell (née Stephen).^[2] He was a nephew ofVirginia Woolf (née Stephen).^[3] He was educated at the QuakerLeighton Park School and atCambridge.^[4][5]

After being educated atLeighton Park School and inParis, Bell became aLecturer in Art History at the Department ofFine Art,King's College,University of Durham from 1952 to 1962, then became the firstProfessor of Fine Art at theUniversity of Leeds from 1962 to 1967. While there he allowed art and english studentSue Crockford to study two films even though film was not yet regarded as an art form.^[6] During 1964–65, he was appointedSlade Professor of Fine Art atOxford University and, during 1965–66, Ferens Professor of Fine Art at theUniversity of Hull. Bell was a Professor of the History and Theory of Art at theUniversity of Sussex from 1967 to 1975.

Levitating Woman, 'The Dreamer' at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery,University of Leeds.^[7]

He sometimes worked as an artist, principally in ceramics, but for his career he was drawn to academia and to book-writing. Bell's biography of his famous aunt,Virginia Woolf: A Biography, 2 vols (London: Hogarth Press, 1972), won not only theJames Tait Black Memorial Prize, but also theDuff Cooper Prize and theYorkshire Post Book of the Year Award. He also wrote several books on theBloomsbury Group andCharleston Farmhouse.^[8]

Bell retired in 1975 and later worked as apotter.^[9] He was also a painter and sculptor, producing the sculptureLevitating Woman, 'The Dreamer' in 1982, on view at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery inLeeds.^[7][10]His portraits are held in theNational Portrait Gallery, London.^[9] His portrait was painted byVanessa Bell andDuncan Grant.^[11]

He was married toAnne Olivier Bell (née Popham). They had three children: Julian Bell, an artist and muralist;Cressida Bell, a textile designer; andVirginia Nicholson,^[12] the writer ofCharleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden,Among the Bohemians andSingled Out.Bell had an older brother, the poetJulian Bell, who died in the Spanish Civil War in 1937. The writer and artistAngelica Garnett was his half-sister, andAmaryllis andHenrietta Garnett were his nieces.

Quentin Bell died inSussex,^[13] and is buried in the churchyard ofSt. Peter’s Church,West Firle,East Sussex.

Archives at
Location E.J. Pratt Library  Identifiers 64  Source Quentin Bell fonds
How to use archival material

• The Quentin Bell Collection at the Victoria University Library at the University of Toronto
• "Eminent Charlestonians with illustrations by Quentin Bell and text by Virginia Woolf"Archived 22 February 2017 at theWayback Machine via Discovering Literature at the British Library

Portraits of Quentin Bell at theNational Portrait Gallery, London

• 1910 births
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• Slade Professors of Fine Art (University of Oxford)
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