Tate Britain will open its first exhibition devoted to the Bloomsbury Group in more than 25 years on 12 November, pairing the painters Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant in a joint survey of their five-decade partnership. Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant: Inside Bloomsbury runs until 11 April 2027 and is the first major exhibition to chart the duo's relationship and artistic journey together. The last Bloomsbury show at the gallery was in 1999.

The exhibition brings together more than 250 objects, including paintings, drawings, photographs, posters, ceramics, textiles, furniture, letters and books. Its centrepiece is a full reconstruction of the studio Bell and Grant shared at Charleston, their house in East Sussex, which is being moved to London for the first time while Charleston itself undergoes conservation work. The show is organised by Tate Britain in collaboration with Charleston and curated by Thomas Kennedy, the gallery's curator of modern British art, with Eliza Spindel.

Bell and Grant lived and painted at Charleston from 1918 until Bell's death in 1961, and the exhibition follows their work from early post-impressionist and abstract painting to later naturalistic portraits, landscapes and still lifes. It also presents the decorative work they made together, from hand-painted furniture and ceramics to the Famous Women dinner service of 50 plates whose authorship is deliberately indistinguishable between the two artists. Kennedy has said no major exhibition has previously paired the two in this way.

The show arrives as Charleston itself is in the news. A pen-and-biro portrait believed to be Grant's final depiction of Bell, made around her death in 1961, was rediscovered among family papers during research for the exhibition and donated to Charleston. It appears in the exhibition catalogue and will go on public display at Charleston in May 2027. The Tate show is supported by Kim Jones and Farrow and Ball, with adult tickets priced at 20 pounds.