Данкан Грант: Художник и дизайнер Круга Блумсбери

Scottish painter and designer

Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 – 8 May 1978) was a Scottish 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, and sometime Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. Grant was also the first cousin twice removed of John Grant, 13th Earl of Dysart (b. 1946).

Grant was born on 21 January 1885, to Major Bartle Grant and Ethel Isabel McNeil in Rothiemurchus, Aviemore, Scotland. Between 1887 and 1894, the family lived in India and Burma, returning to England every two years. During this period, Grant was educated by his governess, Alice Bates. Along with Rupert Brooke, Grant attended Hillbrow School, Rugby, 1894–99, where he received lessons from an art teacher and became interested in Japanese prints. In 1908, Grant painted a portrait of John Maynard Keynes, whom he had met the previous year, while the two were on holiday in Orkney. A few doors away, at 29 Fitzroy Square, lived Adrian and Virginia Stephen (later Virginia Woolf). Grant would later recall: 'a close friendship sprang up between Adrian Stephen and myself and I had only to tap on the window to be let in. The maid told Virginia "that Mr Grant gets in everywhere". But very irregular as my visits were, they became more and more a habit, and I think they soon became frequent enough to escape notice.' Grant composed two oil paintings to fit with the theme of illustrating London on Holiday. Both his paintings, Football and Bathing, bear the influence of early Italian art and Byzantine mosaics.

Grant's early affairs were exclusively homosexual. His lovers included his cousin, the writer Lytton Strachey, the future politician Arthur Hobhouse and the economist John Maynard Keynes, who at one time considered Grant the love of his life because of his good looks and the originality of his mind. Through Strachey, Grant became involved in the Bloomsbury Group, where he made many such great friends including Vanessa Bell. He would eventually live with Vanessa Bell who, though she was a married woman, fell deeply in love with him and, one night, succeeded in seducing him; Bell very much wanted a child by Grant, and she became pregnant in the spring of 1918. Although it is generally assumed that Grant's sexual relations with Bell ended in the months before Angelica was born (Christmas, 1918), they continued to live together for more than 40 years. During that time, their relationship was mainly domestic and creative; they often painted in the same studio together, praising and critiquing each other's work. Living with Vanessa Bell was no impediment to Grant's relationships with men, either before or after Angelica was born. Angelica grew up believing that Vanessa's husband Clive Bell was her biological father; she bore his surname and his behaviour toward her never indicated otherwise. Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell had formed an open relationship, although she herself apparently never had any further affairs. Duncan, in contrast, had many physical affairs and several serious relationships with other men, most notably David Garnett, who would one day marry Angelica and have four daughters with her, including Amaryllis Garnett. Grant's love and respect for Bell, however, kept him with her until her death in 1961. Angelica wrote: "(Grant) was a homosexual with bisexual leanings".

In Grant's later years, his lover, the poet Paul Roche (1916–2007), whom he had known since 1946, took care of him and enabled Grant to maintain his accustomed way of life at Charleston for many years. Grant and Roche's relationship was strong and lasted even during Roche's marriage and five children he had by the late 1950s. Roche was made co heir of Grant's estate. Grant eventually died in Roche's home in 1978. Duncan Grant's remains are buried beside Vanessa Bell's in the churchyard of St Peter's Church, West Firle, East Sussex.

Duncan Grant is referenced with Isadora Duncan and Mary Garden in A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926) by Hugh MacDiarmid (lines 30–32).