[1] The family included her sister Virginia, brothers Thoby (1880–1906) and Adrian (1883–1948), half-sister Laura (1870–1945) whose mother was Harriett Thackeray and half-brothers George and Gerald Duckworth; they lived at 22 Hyde Park Gate, Westminster, London.

She was educated at home in languages, mathematics and history, and took drawing lessons from Ebenezer Cook before she attended Sir Arthur Cope's art school in 1896.

[3] After the deaths of her mother in 1895 and her father in 1904, Vanessa sold 22 Hyde Park Gate and moved to Gordon Square in Bloomsbury with her sister Virginia and brothers Thoby and Adrian.

[5] These social gatherings at Vanessa's home on Gordon Square led to the formation of the Bloomsbury Group, which included: Lytton Strachey, Desmond MacCarthy, Maynard Keynes, Leonard Woolf, Roger Fry, and Duncan Grant.

John Maynard Keynes was also a close friend and frequent member of the household, until his marriage to Lydia Lopokova, whom Bell disliked.

[12] Vanessa was encouraged by the Post-Impressionist exhibitions organised by Roger Fry, and she copied their bright colours and bold forms in her artworks.

[15] Bell's paintings include Studland Beach (1912),[16] The Tub (1918), Interior with Two Women (1932), and portraits of her sister Virginia Woolf (three in 1912), Aldous Huxley (1929–1930) and David Garnett (1916).

[21] Design for Overmantel Mural (1913), oil on paper, depicts herself and Molly MacCarthy naked in Bell's studio at 46 Gordon Square.

[citation needed] By the Estuary (1915), oil on canvas, is a modestly scaled landscape showing her fondness for clarity of design in which segments of contrasting color harmonize.

[24] A 2024–2025 exhibition at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, Vanessa Bell: A World of Form and Colour, claimed to her largest-ever solo show.