Francesca Wade

Francesca Wade is the author of ‘Square Haunting: Five Women, Freedom and London Between the Wars’ (Faber). She is working on a book about Gertrude Stein.

Picabia, the painter who refused to be pinned down

In his final works, some of which have never been shown before, the endlessly restless artist adopted an abstract style that challenges us to look for hidden meanings

7 Feb 2025

Nude Self Portrait (c. 1915; detail), Florine Stettheimer. Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York

The thoroughly modern scenes of Florine Stettheimer

The painter who was at the heart of the New York avant-garde captured the many excitements of the modern age

5 Apr 2022

Clive Bell (detail; c. 1924), Roger Fry. National Portrait Gallery, London

Bloomsbury’s gooseberry? ‘Clive Bell and the Making of Modernism’, reviewed

Clive Bell is now best known as Vanessa’s husband – but a new biography replenishes his role in promoting modernism in Britain

16 Jun 2021

Photograph from 1904/06 of ‘Steamboat ladies’ – women students from Cambridge who were awarded degrees by Trinity College Dublin in the 1900s. Girton College, Cambridge

‘Frustrate the Feminine Fanatics’ – how women overcame their critics at Cambridge University

It is 150 years since women first arrived at Cambridge – and the fight for equality has taken almost as long

18 Oct 2019