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Anne Olivier Bell

English art scholar, member of Bloomsbury Group and Monuments Men,

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ55739320 ↗
Source-derived summary

Anne Olivier Bell (née Popham; 22 June 1916 – 18 July 2018) was an English art scholar. She was part of the Bloomsbury Group and best known for editing the diaries of Virginia Woolf. As a member of the Monuments Men, she was responsible for the protection of cultural artefacts in Europe during the Second World War and earned the military rank of Major.

Early life

Anne Olivier Popham was born in London to Arthur Popham, an expert in Italian art, and Brynhild, daughter of Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier and a cousin of Laurence Olivier.

Anne Popham had two brothers. Her parents divorced in 1924. After her mother's remarriage to F. R. G. N. Sherrard, she moved with them to Dorset. Her mother had three more children with Sherrard.

Anne Pophams's mother died in 1935, after which she lived with her father. She attended St Paul's Girls' School, then went to Germany to train as an opera singer.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Anne Olivier Bell” is english art scholar, member of Bloomsbury Group and Monuments Men,. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Anne, Olivier and Bell, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1916, 2018, 1924, 1935—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1916-06-22, 1916-01-01—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. For this dossier, Anne, Olivier and Bell is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “english art scholar, member of Bloomsbury Group and Monuments Men,” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q55739320. VIAF identifies the subject as 72558. The Library of Congress control number is n78077177. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 2018, 1924 and 1935.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  • Search vocabulary
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Anne Olivier Bell”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Anne Olivier Bell primary sources, Anne Olivier Bell archive and Anne research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Anne Olivier Bell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.