Duncan Grant and his Tracksuit

What do the clothes we wear say about who we are and what we stand for? Charlie Porter uncovers and examines the clothing choices of Duncan Grant from his 20s to late 70s.

On 10 October 2017 I was emailed a photograph. It was of the artist Duncan Grant, sat outside the garden room at Charleston. He was wearing a tracksuit, a straw hat on his head.

The photograph threw me. At the time, I had just started research on my book ‘What Artists Wear’, which uses clothing to shed new light on artists, their work and the times in which it was made. I had already spent time looking through photographs taken by Vanessa Bell. There were many of Grant as a young man in the 1920s, his tailoring loose and soft, his shirts crumpled and roomy, open at the neck, like in this photo of Grant sat cross-legged outside the Garden Room at Charleston. But somehow, for the book’s purposes, the images from the 1920s kept Grant in his time. I couldn’t feel the connection.

Duncan Grant outside the Garden Room at Charleston, 1933-35; copyright: The Charleston Trust

Then I opened the email. Grant in a tracksuit unlocked everything for me. The photograph was black and white, just like those Bell took in the 1920s. But this was from the 1970s, Grant in the last years of his life. The images were by Chris Ware, a Fleet Street photographer who worked for the Keystone picture agency. It means the images were not private, like those I had look at in the Tate archive, but for public consumption. What Grant wore had been chosen for this public display. The tracksuit had meaning.

At the time, what men wore was much more codified, especially for elder men, which is to say most men wore what was expected of them: a suit jacket; maybe a nice cardigan; slacks. Grant in a tracksuit showed his independence and individuality, as well as the entirely private world that Grant and Vanessa Bell had created for themselves at Charleston. There, they could wear what they wanted.

‘Grant’s clothes from the 1910s and 20s look normal but they are radical.’

Suddenly time began to crumble for me. That loose tailoring of his younger years, those crumpled shirts: what can we learn from them? Grant was a pacifist. His father was a major who served in India. His grandfather, John Peter Grant, was governor of Jamaica from 1866, after slavery had been abolished but still when white plantation and property owners held power over the black population.

Grant was 29 at the outbreak of the Second World War. In January 1916, parliament introduced the Military Service act, imposing conscription on all men to the age of 40. When Bell first signed the lease on Charleston in September 1916, it gave Grant and his then lover David Garnett the chance to escape conscription. They could work on the land.

Grant’s clothes from the 1910s and 20s look normal but they are radical. One photo in the Tate archive shows Grant in a soft jacket cut for utility, buttoning high up the body with little lapels also buttoned down. Another photo has Grant in the same jacket, now splattered up its front with paint. It is worn for labour. It looks glorious. Grant wears another soft jacket in a different photo, this one cut more like a suit jacket. It is unstructured, with patch pockets. Underneath he wears a shirt unbuttoned.

Duncan Grant at Charleston at Christmas; photo: Roger Fry; copyright: The Charleston Trust

This is the clothing of resistance. It is the clothing of queer humans breaking from societal norms, as well as the legacy of family. In the early 20th century, functional clothing offered the solution for those seeking to live outside of society, while being able to pass within it. This functional clothing tells the story of Grant’s stand for peace, and the commitment to pursuing fresh modes of living within the private world of Charleston.

‘Sat in his tracksuit, entirely his own human, it is like he is saying: look at what we have done here. Look at how we live.’

That private world: clothes could also be removed. As important to the look of Grant’s wardrobe was his ease with nudity. This was not clothing for concealment, buttoning up to hide both physically and psychologically. The clothes worn by Grant in his younger years look like they could come off in a second. He wore his nakedness with pride.

Back to the tracksuit. I was sent another photograph. Grant is sat inside at Charleston, surrounded by paintings. The straw hat was now in his hands, held on his knee. Also in his hands is the copy of a book, ‘Enigma Variations And’. It was a collection of poetry written by Grant’s long-term companion Paul Roche, for which Grant had drawn the cover. In the photograph, Grant is looking straight into the camera. Charleston had been his world for 50 years. Sat in his tracksuit, entirely his own human, it is like he is saying: look at what we have done here. Look at how we live.