“They lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles” quipped American writer and wit Dorothy Parker about The Bloomsbury group which is the subject of an illustrated talk by popular Monmouthshire art history lecturer Eleanor Bird at the Drill Hall Chepstow Tuesday 28 April 7.30pm, exploring the explosion of new painting in the early 20th century, from Bloomsbury Group artists, with key figures Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry, discovering their work and their interconnected lives. Based in Bloomsbury they were central figures in the famous group which included great writers and thinkers with whom they also lived and loved.

This avant garde group of artists were one of the first in Britain to take up exciting new ideas from Paris, bringing innovative colour, drama and simplification of form to art – and rocking the establishment along the way… It was Roger Fry, who was an art historian, curator and critic, who brought the work of Cezanne, Matisse, Gaugin and Van Gogh to the attention of the British public through exhibition and coined the term Post Impressionism to describe it.

Fry was also passionate about breaking down the barrier between fine and decorative art, and applying their artistic vision to decorate homes, furniture, ceramics, textiles and clothing creating the Omega Workshops where like-minded artists found employment and the opportunity to develop their work.

One was the young Welsh artist Nina Hamnett aka “the Queen of Bohemia” Born in Tenby in 1890, she was as famous for her flamboyant personality as for her work, unconventional and openly bisexual she had numerous lovers in the avant garde circles of London and Paris.

Another was Dora Carrington, born in Hereford in 1893, she also painted landscapes, portraits and still lifes, For many years her art was neglected and her main notoriety was her private life and love for the homosexual writer Lytton Stratchey with whom she lived in a menage a trois, ending her own life shortly after he died.

In June 1918, Virginia Woolf wrote of Carrington in her diary: "She is odd from her mixture of impulse & self consciousness. I wonder sometimes what she's at: so eager to please, conciliatory, restless and active b ut she is such a bustling eager creature, so red & solid, & at the same time inquisitive, that one can't help liking her."

This talk anticipates a major new exhibition at Tate Britain this autumn that will focus on Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant,and an exhibition of Roger Fry’s work has just opened at the Museum of Somerset, Taunton. Not only will it whet the appetite but provide invaluable insights in preparation for visits! Eleanor Bird will also be setting the innovation of the Bloomsbury Group artists into the wider context of Modernism in Britain in the 1910s and ‘20s - changing times …

Get tickets online in advance (reserved seats) or at the door from 7pm. There will also be a live online lecture on Wed 6 May with a recording available after if you can't get to Chepstow...