Alistair Hardaker
Image: The studio created a century ago by artists Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry (Lewis Ronald)
Arts Council England and Tate provide £220,000 toward £470,000 conservation project requiring roof, window and door repairs alongside new environmental systems.
Charleston has launched a fundraising campaign to safeguard the studio created a century ago by artists Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry.
The ‘Studio 100’ campaign project is expected to cost £470,000, and has already secured £220,000 from Arts Council England and support in kind from Tate.
Charleston is now seeking to raise the remaining £250,000 to conserve the studio, originally constructed in 1925 from what had once been a chicken shed.
Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and Roger Fry were the three key artists of the Bloomsbury group. This group of artists, writers, and thinkers was responsible for radical innovations in twentieth-century literature, art, and design.
The lifelong friendships formed within the Bloomsbury group shaped the artists’ work together, from their home in Bloomsbury, London, to their residence in Charleston, Sussex.
Repairs are required to the studio’s roof, windows and doors, and painted walls and floors created by Bell and Grant.
Environmental monitoring systems are to be installed to reduce humidity and stabilise temperature alongside new sun blinds and infrared window film to manage light and heat.
The work will be carried out during restaging of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s studio, which will be relocated for an exhibition at Tate Britain between November 2026 and April 2027.
Nathaniel Hepburn MBE, director and chief executive of Charleston, said the studio at Charleston is “a place of global importance – a space where art, life and community came together in radical new ways.”
