(b Rothiemurchus, nr. Aviemore, 21 Jan. 1885; d Aldermaston, Berkshire, 8 May 1978). British painter and designer. Through the writer Lytton Strachey (his cousin) he became a member of the Bloomsbury Group, and he was also familiar with avant-garde circles in Paris (he met Matisse in 1909 and Picasso soon afterwards). Up to about 1910 his work—which included landscapes, portraits, and still lifes—was fairly sober in form and restrained in colour, but he then underwent a rapid development to become one of the most advanced of British artists in his response to modern French painting (he was included in Roger Fry's second Post-Impressionist exhibition in 1912). From about 1913 he was also influenced by African sculpture, and he was one of the first British artists to produce completely abstract pictures.