Lauren Elkin previews Vanessa Bell: 1879-1941 at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. The show will be on view from February 8 – June 4, 2017.

Elkin concludes: “Bell’s art countered symbolism with intense sensuality and a celebration of the tactile. The explosive beauty of the surface takes us back to the material of the work, to physical encounter. It roots us in the moment, and, as her sister [Virginia Woolf] would put it, in life itself.”