The Beautiful Vanessa Bell Painting

The beautiful Vanessa Bell painting below made us think of the Eileen Mayo still life that we had on the post a year ago, here. So we thought we would have a couple of weeks of neglected, or rather not-so-often-mentioned, women artists and Eileen Mayo (1906-94) herself is first up: Still Life with a painting of the dancer Karsavina c. 1920 was recently sold by Bay East Auctions. Here is Eileen Mayo's obituary from the Independent. Looking at a painting like this and the one below does of course raise the perennial question: why are some artists and writers well-known and others barely heard of? Answers on a postcard please! This is especially on our minds because we have been reading the new Alan Hollinghurst (Booker longlist etc) just after devouring, being unable to put down, Helen Hull's 1932 novel Heat Lightning. Has anyone heard of it. Has anyone not heard of the Hollinghurst? And which is the better novel?.