The Rare and the Beautiful: The Art, Loves, and Lives of the Garman Sisters

The Garman siblings were beautiful, dashing, sensual and ruthless in their pursuit of genius, art and lovers. Cressida Connolly’s biography is revelatory, shocking and enthralling. There were seven sisters and two brothers but some dominated more than others.

There was Kathleen, Epstein’s mistress and muse. Mary was the wife of the poet Roy Campbell and was seduced by Vita Sackville-West. Virginia Woolf was so jealous she wrote Orlando in response. Lorna was first the mistress of Laurie Lee and then the lover of Lucian Freud. Douglas, the communist brother and who was nearly as beautiful as Ivor Novello, was Peggy Guggenheim’s lover. Then there was Sylvia who looked like George Sand and wept ‘because no one ever invited her show more out.’ Family legend said she seduced T.E. Lawrence but ‘only once’.

The echoes of the Bloomsbury circle are evident – love affairs, indifferently fathered children, complicated families and lots of art. However, the Garmans have one advantage over the Bloomsbury set. As the grand, widowed Lady Epstein (finally), Kathleen donated her family art collection to Walsall Library in Birmingham where they had all begun their lives. A public library. The Garmans also had better perfumes. Kathleen used Patou’s Adieu Sagesse and later Arpège. Lorna glided between Chanel No. 5, Caron’s Fluers de Rocaille and Caron’s Incre. Helen, meanwhile, favoured Chanel No. 5 too and Soir de Paris. Much better really than the Bloomsbury set who must have smelt of turpentine and ink. show less