Lowe Connects | Vanessa Bell and Gwen John

Lowe Connects | Vanessa Bell and Gwen John: Women Who Pushed the Artistic Envelope in Early 20th-Century Britain Video recording of "Lowe Connects" on Thursday, June 10, 2021. As part of its series “Lowe Connects,” the Museum is pleased to host a virtual discussion with Peter Trippi, editor-in-chief of Fine Art Connoisseur, about the fascinating lives and careers of British artists Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) and Gwen John (1876–1939). They pursued very different life journeys and created completely distinctive art, yet the British artists Vanessa Bell (1879–1961) and Gwen John (1876–1939) had much in common. Both were born in the Victorian era that expected quite little from women, yet each in her own way surprised—sometimes shocked—their contemporaries while making forward-looking artworks still admired today. Peter Trippi traces their career paths and examines their artistic achievements, including the works that will represent them in the BNY Mellon exhibition coming to the Lowe this autumn.   Peter Trippi is editor-in-chief of Fine Art Connoisseur, the magazine that serves collectors of contemporary and historical realist art. He is also president of Projects in 19th-Century Art, a firm he established to pursue research, writing, and curating opportunities. Based in New York City, Trippi directed the Dahesh Museum of Art and co-curated international touring exhibitions devoted to J.W. Waterhouse (1849–1917) and Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912). His Waterhouse monograph was published by Phaidon Press in 2002 and is still in print. Trippi recently authored an essay in the catalogue that accompanies the James Tissot exhibition that visited San Francisco and Paris in 2019–20. His current exhibition, Artful Stories: Paintings from Historic New England, was co-curated with Nancy Carlisle and is on view at the Eustis Estate in Milton, Massachusetts, through October 2021.