Drawing on the flat system

Almost 50 years after the death of the Scottish artist Duncan Grant, a previously unknown diary was discovered among family papers and later sold at auction. The diary/notebook, covering the whole of 1911, fetched £13,750 - more than seventeen times its estimate - and provides a rare first-hand record of the young artist’s life before he became one of the defining painters of the Bloomsbury Group.

Grant was born near Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands in 1885. The son of a British Army officer, he spent parts of his childhood in India and Burma before returning to England. After studying at Westminster School of Art he travelled in Europe, where he encountered the work of Cézanne, Matisse and other modern French artists whose influence would shape his own developing style. Prior to the First World War, he had become closely associated with the Bloomsbury Group. 

Grant formed friendships with Virginia Woolf (see One wave after another, Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey (Strachey’s new biography), John Maynard Keynes and many other leading literary and artistic figures of the period. As well as painting, he designed textiles, stage sets, murals and decorative schemes, becoming one of the most versatile artists of his generation. He spent much of his adult life at Charleston in Sussex with Vanessa Bell, creating one of the most celebrated artistic households in Britain. Although fashions in art changed dramatically during his long career, he remained active well into old age and continued painting almost until the end of his life. He died in 1978. Further information is available from Wikipedia, the Tate and Charleston.

The newly discovered diary covers the year 1911, when Grant was twenty-six years old and beginning to establish himself professionally. It emerged from the papers of the family of art historian John Woodeson and appears to be the only diary of Grant’s currently known to survive. It was put up for auction by Gorringe’s (Lewes) in March 2025 with a high estimate of £800 - and sold for £11,000! According to newspaper reports at the time, it was bought by a private buyer - see Scottish Field.

Rather than a reflective journal, the diary is essentially a working notebook, recording appointments, journeys, paintings, meals, exhibitions and encounters with friends. The entries reveal a busy existence centred on art and friendship. Grant frequently notes meetings with Adrian Stephen, Henry Lamb and other members of his circle. He worked steadily throughout the year, recording progress on paintings and occasionally making brief observations about artistic technique. One entry describes work on a composition of dancers and notes that a ‘system of colour appears plain & simple’, adding the intriguing remark: ‘Drawing on the flat system.’ Elsewhere he records painting a child, sketching friends, travelling to Cambridge, dining at restaurants, attending exhibitions and taking Turkish baths.

The diary also captures Grant moving through the wider world beyond Bloomsbury. In June 1911 he recorded attending the Coronation procession of George V and Queen Mary, later remarking on the evening celebrations and noting that ‘the illuminations were fine’. Other entries describe continental travel, including visits to Segesta, Palermo and Monreale in Sicily. The notebook even contains a pencil sketch of a standing nude, reinforcing its character as a working artist’s personal record rather than a conventional diary.

The following extracts from the notebook have been (amateurishly) transcribed from the images made available by Gorringe’s at the time of the auction.  

21 January 1911

‘My 26th birthday. Mother gave me this book as a present, also a cushion & a sponge. Aunt [?] 10/-. Adrian 2 photos. At studio by 10. Visit from Adrian. Painted dancing women. Lunch at 29. Again painted dancing women. Tea at ABC. Adrian. (Peacock. Melincourt). Home to dinner. Aunt returned from Switzerland. Daddy to dinner.’

23 January 1911

‘Dark day. Up late. 11. Painted dancers after lunch the red figure. System of colour appears plain & simple. Drawing on the flat system.’

24 January 1911

‘Bright day. Adrian to breakfast. He afterwards to Cambridge. Painted child. Lunch ABC with Henry Lamb all afternoon. Tea ABC. A back [too]. Drew him. Dinner at 29.’

22 June 1911

‘Full breakfast at 6. I visited the Coronation Procession. Took a position in Trafalgar Sq. I then walked up [the Haymarket?] & from Jermyn Street to St James’s Sq. Had a T. Bath at 8 [?] at about 12:30 & saw the procession from Pall Mall [. . .] Fitzroy Sq.’