Roger Fry’s 1917 portrait of Nina Hamnet known as the Queen of Bohemia. Hamnet is pictured in a dress designed by Vanessa Bell made at the Omega Workshops. The cushion on the chair is covered with 'Maud' linen, also by Bell.
Flamboyantly unconventional, and openly bisexual, Hamnett once danced nude on a Montparnasse café table just for the "hell of it". She drank heavily, was sexually promiscuous, and kept numerous lovers and close associations within the artistic community. Very quickly, she became a well-known bohemian personality throughout Paris and modelled for many artists.
Returning to London she made Fitzrovia her personal Bohemia frequenting Fitzroy Tavern on the corner of Charlotte and Windmill Streets; a favourite haunt of home town friend, Augustus John.
Hamnett died in 1956 from complications after falling out of her apartment window and being impaled on the fence forty feet below. The great debate has always been whether or not it was a suicide attempt or merely a drunken accident. Her last words were "Why don't they let me die?"
#ninahamnett #rogerfry #omegaworkshops
