Interior Decoration: An Introduction to its Principles, and International
Survey of its Methods, Dorothy Todd and Raymond Mortimer made a sub-
stantial claim for the socially elite work of the English ‘Bloomsbury Group’
- that of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant in particular.^34 The couple’s use of
intense, hand-made decoration was visible in the library they worked on in
Clive Bell’s London flat. Their predilection was for interiors which com-
bined the application of colourful, abstract patterns on to as many surfaces
as possible with artworks – their own and of others – and personal items,
from books to memorabilia. The result was a charming, highly personalized
set of modern spaces. New descriptive names for other variants of the
modern decorative style emerged in the 1930 s, among them Swank Modern,
which was used to describe the work of the American lady decorators.
Emily Genauer coined the terms Rustic Modern, Baroque Modern and
Directoire Modern, an indication of the variety of contemporary interior 105
The library in the London flat of Clive Bell, decorated by Duncan Grant and Vanessa
Bell, 1920 s, and illustrated in Dorothy Todd and Raymond Mortimer’s The New Interior
Decoration, 1929.