As the son of Clive Bell and Vanessa Bell and the nephew of Virginia Woolf, Quentin Bell was born into the heart of the Bloomsbury Group. He worked as a lecturer in art history and fine art in several universities including Leeds, Oxford and Sussex. After the success of his authoritative two-volume biography of his aunt, Virginia Woolf (published in 1972) Bell turned his attention to chronicling the history of the Bloomsbury Group and was instrumental in establishing the Charleston Trust. He wrote a number of books on the group and on Charleston Farmhouse. Bell retired from academia in 1975, and subsequently worked for many years as a potter.