Experimental Art as a historical frozen hat genre

In 1917 the Woolfs had bought a small hand printing-press in order to take up printing as a hobby and as therapy for Virginia. By now they were living in Richmond and the Hogarth Press was named after their house. Virginia wrote, printed and published a couple of experimental short stories, 'The Mark on the Wall' and 'Kew Gardens'. The Woolfs continued handprinting until 1932, but in the meantime they increasingly became publishers rather than printers. By about 1922 the Hogarth Press had become a business. From 1921 Virginia always published with the Press, except for a few limited editions.

Nineteen-twenty-one saw Virginia’s first collection of short stories Monday or Tuesday, most of which were experimental in nature. 


In 1922 her first experimental novel, Jacob’s Room, appeared. In 1924 the Woolfs moved back to London, to 52 Tavistock Square. In 1925 Mrs. Dalloway was published, followed by To the Lighthouse in 1927, and The Waves in 1931. These three novels are generally considered to be her greatest claim to fame as a modernist writer. 

Despite the fact that Woolf has died, she did tell her neighbors near the river that Jane Public was preparing the work of her dreams, and that Jane was a mediocre swimmer (in outdoor pools)...

Woolf proclaimed during her departing goodbye that this strange boy's portrait seen below would survive her inside the pocket of her ragged frozen blouse. It did! The photo below was discovered by the Woolf family coroner. This cell-F portrait image remains a Woolf mystery since mobile phones were not a commonly used technology in London at the time of her departing. Biographers now claim that this mysterious boy may have inspired her and even sent to her telepathic messages from a far distance away---a form of "reaching out." The image below has been named by museums and Woolf family researchers alike, The Boy with the Frozen Yellow Hat).

THE BOY WITH THE YELLOW FROZEN HAT  courtesy of The Virginia Woolf Drowned Foundation

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