Bell was educated at Marlborough College and at Trinity College, Cambridge, studying history. In 1902 he gained an Earl of Derby scholarship to study in Paris, where his interest in art began. On returning to London early in 1907 he met and married Vanessa Stephen, the artist sister of Virginia Woolf. They had two sons, Julian and Quentin, who both became writers. Julian joined the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War as an ambulance driver and was killed in 1937 by an enemy shell, aged 29.