lady ottoline morrell

Lady ottoline morrell

Adolf de Meyer American, born France. Not on view. Adolph de Meyer's portrait of Lady Ottoline Morrell, eccentric hostess to Bloomsbury, is a stunning summation of the character of this aristocratic lady who aspired to live "on the same plane as poetry and as music. Yeats, lady ottoline morrell, D.

Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles, where she befriended writers including Aldous Huxley , Siegfried Sassoon , T. Eliot and D. Lady Ottoline's great-great-uncle through her paternal grandmother, Lady Charles Bentinck was the 1st Duke of Wellington. Through her father, Arthur, she was a first cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother , and thus a first cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth II , both of whom descended from Arthur's brother Charles Cavendish-Bentinck. Ottoline was granted the rank of a daughter of a duke with the courtesy title of "Lady" soon after her half-brother William succeeded to the Dukedom of Portland in , [2] [3] at which time the family moved into Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire.

Lady ottoline morrell

Perhaps Oscar Wilde lived up to his own dictum: "One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. Six foot tall, with reams of copper-red hair, turquoise eyes, a long nose and jutting jaw, she wore clothes that had little to do with fashion but everything to do with originality. She also inspired many artists, particularly Augustus John. Her own passion was for clothes - distinctive, sumptuous, relating as much to the baroque styles of her aristocratic ancestors as they did to the Edwardian fashions of her day. The Museum of Costume in Bath recently acquired much of her wardrobe - the archive of her dress and accessories - which illuminates not only her character but also an aspect of the dress of a section of society who made anti-fashion part of their identity. The Morrell collection now at Bath represents a sartorial attempt to create an alternative world. What emerges from the collection is an indication that Ottoline Morrell was glamorous, idiosyncratic and elegant: not the mad, rather grungy eccentric we have been led to believe. From her death in until the publication of her biography by Miranda Seymour - Ottoline Morrell, Life On a Grand Scale - Morrell has been seen through what Seymour calls the "distorting" eyes of the Bloomsbury Group in their copious letters, diaries and memoirs. She had sunk from being one of the most remarkable and influential women of her time to the level of caricature: "It is like sitting beneath an arum lily; with a thick golden bar in the middle," wrote Virginia Woolf in , "dropping pollen, or whatever that is which seduces the male bee. What is of especial interest now that the collection has come to light is how the clothes are not entirely bohemian.

In letter to him she revealed grave doubts about the physical side of their relationship. She deserves to be reassessed as a pioneer in the development of original style - Leigh Bowery, Vivienne Westwood, Isabella Blow and John Galliano are her descendants. She frankly regarded this development as "an assault upon her person, a burden, the breaking into her existence by an unknown foreigner, lady ottoline morrell.

A cache of unpublished letters from the novelist Virginia Woolf and scores of first editions inscribed by leading writers and poets of the early 20th century has emerged in the contents of the library of Lady Ottoline Morrell, the society hostess who became one of the most flamboyant, loved and mocked associates of the Bloomsbury group. Lady Ottoline was extremely well connected - her first cousin was Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, the future Queen Mother - and her friendships and affairs were legendary in her day and since. Her unmistakable figure, six foot tall with flaming red hair and usually dressed as flamboyantly as a parrot, stalks through books and works of art of the period. The archive - which includes hundreds of books, many rare first editions, letters, photographs and paintings including a grim series of first world war scenes by the poet Siegfried Sassoon - has remained in her family since her death in , but is to be sold next month at a Christie's auction. She kept open house in London and at Garsington, her Jacobean mansion in Oxfordshire, and many treated her homes almost as a club. Among the letters to be sold is one to her from Woolf.

A cache of unpublished letters from the novelist Virginia Woolf and scores of first editions inscribed by leading writers and poets of the early 20th century has emerged in the contents of the library of Lady Ottoline Morrell, the society hostess who became one of the most flamboyant, loved and mocked associates of the Bloomsbury group. Lady Ottoline was extremely well connected - her first cousin was Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, the future Queen Mother - and her friendships and affairs were legendary in her day and since. Her unmistakable figure, six foot tall with flaming red hair and usually dressed as flamboyantly as a parrot, stalks through books and works of art of the period. The archive - which includes hundreds of books, many rare first editions, letters, photographs and paintings including a grim series of first world war scenes by the poet Siegfried Sassoon - has remained in her family since her death in , but is to be sold next month at a Christie's auction. She kept open house in London and at Garsington, her Jacobean mansion in Oxfordshire, and many treated her homes almost as a club. Among the letters to be sold is one to her from Woolf. Woolf wondered: "How on earth does Ottoline suck enough nourishment out of the solitary male? I was thinking of your tea parties and I thought of Stephen Spender talking about himself and of old Tom [TS] Eliot also enlarging on the same theme and then in comes shall we say Siegfried [Sassoon] and it all begins again. Now in human intercourse I like the light to strike on more angles than one.

Lady ottoline morrell

Perhaps Oscar Wilde lived up to his own dictum: "One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art. Six foot tall, with reams of copper-red hair, turquoise eyes, a long nose and jutting jaw, she wore clothes that had little to do with fashion but everything to do with originality. She also inspired many artists, particularly Augustus John. Her own passion was for clothes - distinctive, sumptuous, relating as much to the baroque styles of her aristocratic ancestors as they did to the Edwardian fashions of her day. The Museum of Costume in Bath recently acquired much of her wardrobe - the archive of her dress and accessories - which illuminates not only her character but also an aspect of the dress of a section of society who made anti-fashion part of their identity. The Morrell collection now at Bath represents a sartorial attempt to create an alternative world.

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When Russell refused to pay a fine imposed for writing and distributing an antiwar pamphlet, Ottoline helped raise money to pay the fine and save his library from being seized and sold. Philip soon recognized that his wife was "addicted to romantic figures" and that he could do nothing to change her ways. Morrell still found a certain solace in religion, but it could not compensate for the alienation she felt among her own social class. In fact, she was attracted to men who were ineligible partners; in , she met Herbert Henry Asquith , a leading figure in the Liberal Party, later prime minister in and married to Margot Asquith. She was a liberal in politics, and strongly supported her MP husband. Frustrated that she could not be a writer, an artist or a philosopher, Lady Ottoline Morrell set out to define herself through her wardrobe. She took him to concerts, theatre trips and expensive restaurants. The dukedom was a title which belonged to the head of the Cavendish-Bentinck family and which passed to Lady Ottoline's branch upon the death of their cousin, the 5th Duke of Portland , in December Edited by Carolyn G. May 18, , Hugh died three days later. There is a black silk velvet dress with a square neckline edged with seed pearls and beads, for instance.

Her patronage was influential in artistic and intellectual circles, where she befriended writers including Aldous Huxley , Siegfried Sassoon , T. Eliot and D. Lady Ottoline's great-great-uncle through her paternal grandmother, Lady Charles Bentinck was the 1st Duke of Wellington.

Often ignored and slighted by Ottoline's "clever, sharp-tongued guests," Philip had managed finally to create a separate life of his own. In her memoirs, Ottoline admitted that she was entranced by Virginia: "This strange, lovely, furtive creature never seemed to me to be made of common flesh and blood. Morrell, Ottoline — gale. The Morrells maintained a townhouse in Bedford Square [15] in Bloomsbury and also owned a country house at Peppard, near Henley on Thames. In the Morrells rented a second home, Peppard Cottage. Name variations: Lady Ottoline Morrell. To him, she was too much of an idealist, and he considered her appearance "ludicrous"—when they first met Morrell was wearing "voluminous pale pink Turkish trousers" which shocked his staid British sensibilities. Edited by Carolyn G. Eliot , Lady Ottoline Morrell. She was collecting authors to the end of her days: the sale includes an inscribed first edition of Graham Greene's dire first collection of verse, Babbling April.

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