The short life and many loves of Stephen Tomlin

Virginia Woolf had mixed feelings about Stephen “Tommy” Tomlin. The writer seems to have been one of the few Bloomsbury luminaries not to fall for the much younger sculptor, who apparently managed to flirt with Duncan Grant, Lytton Strachey, Dora Carrington, David Garnett, Sylvia Townsend Warner and dozens of others in his short life. In 1926, writing to Vita Sackville-West, Woolf acknowledged that he was “the ravage of all hearts” and “lively as an elf”, but these were the limits of seduction. He was her too, she told Vita, “deformed as a woodpecker.”

This month, an exhibition in Philip Mold & Co. sheds a rare light on Tomlin’s talents. Focusing on Mold’s acquisitions of Tomlin’s descendants, it favors the busts that defend their place as an intriguing footnote to British art history, despite his death in 1937 aged just 35 (later he also worked in ceramics): his portraits of Strachey, Grant or even Woolf, whose imminent likeness, the only statue made of Woolf from life, now stands in Tavistock Square, opposite the site where he once lived.

Lucas Eduardo’s Hall has provided designs for the exhibition. She first heard of Tomlin after reading a biography, titled bloomsbury stallion like the show, by Susan Fox and Michael Bloch. “I guess he was fascinated because so many of his contemporaries seemed to have been in love with him,” says Hall. “He was described as the most charming, the most interesting, the most beautiful, the favorite guest… He basically seduced everyone.”

“Not many people resisted, from what you read,” confirms Bloch. “His wife of his would describe how he seduced everyone at a party, and she doesn’t mean ‘seduce’ in a platonic way.” The diminutive Tomlin (5 feet 6 inches tall) seemingly dominated the crowd with an athletic physique and fascinating conversation; Also, a breath of danger. “He was an unusual person, a man of contrasts,” says Bloch. “But Susan and I agreed that if we had met him, we would have fallen for him like a ton of bricks!”

Born into the Kentish gentry (his father was a judge, eventually Lord), Tomlin was sent to Harrow, where he dazzled with his promise. He decided to become a sculptor and soon became friends and lovers with David “Bunny” Garnett, the novelist best known as the lover of Duncan Grant and the husband of Grant’s daughter, Angelica Bell. It would be the beginning of Tomlin’s depth. entanglement with Bloomsbury, although she had friends and contacts beyond her; he spent much time at Ham Spray with Lytton Strachey and Carrington, eventually marrying Lytton’s niece Julia. But he struggled to stick with anything for a long time and clearly had what we would now call mental health issues (both Bloch and Fox believe he may have had bipolar disorder). He quickly went downhill in his 30s, essentially drinking himself to death. Woolf, in a small tribute after her death, said that she had “abandoned the respectable”.

Woolf admitted that he was “the devastation of all hearts”

“It’s your typical story of a tortured artist who dies before he can flourish,” says Fox, who spent more than a decade scouring the archives of the Tate, Cambridge University and New York in search of the particularly elusive Tomlin, who left behind few cards. or notes. “And yet, I think he didn’t have the discipline to focus, for example, on his sculpture. But he had such enormous talent that what he produced is impressive.”

Hall agrees. “As charming as he was, I also really enjoy Tomlin’s work. The bust of him by Duncan Grant, a beautiful piece, speaks to me in particular”.

Most of the work for sale in the Mold exhibition is offered between £25,000 and £50,000. Fox believes that the relationships brought out the best in Tomlin’s work: “When you look at the most successful pieces of him, it’s the images of the people who mattered to him.” However, it’s hard to say that this will mark a resurgence in Tomlin’s market as there is very little of his work: one catalog raisonné puts it at 42. It’s more plausible to wonder if this could herald the review of other smaller Bloomsbury reputations. Mold believes that Simon Bussy is a ripe candidate for reassessment; Edward Wolfe too.

“Definitely Dora Carrington,” says Fox, noting that the painter is going to have a big poll in Pallant House in Chichester next year. “She and Tommy were similar,” she says. “She also painted for her loved ones and did not produce much. She wasn’t disciplined in the way that she could have been. But she lived such a wonderful life.” People tend to look at Carrington (who killed himself shortly after Strachey’s death) or Tomlin as “tragic figures,” and they shouldn’t, says Fox. “I don’t want them to be victims.”

It’s tempting to ask if Tomlin’s greatest achievement was, in fact, his sex life. “No!” replies Fox, a bit horrified. She thinks it was “friendship,” and it reminds me of Tomlin’s passionate conversation. But the traces of those gifts are far away now, leaving only his sculptures, which seem intense, demanding, loving, made with a slightly terrifying force.

The Bloomsbury Stud: The art of Stephen Tomlin is in Philip Mold & Company from June 5 to August 11; Bloomsbury Stud: The Life of Stephen “Tommy” Tomlin by Michael Bloch and Susan Fox is available for purchase at bloomsburystud.net