  Location within Essex | |
| Established | 1946 |
|---|---|
| Location | Colchester, Essex, England |
| Coordinates | 51°53′22″N0°54′18″E / 51.889462°N 0.904957°E Coordinates: 51°53′22″N0°54′18″E / 51.889462°N 0.904957°E |
| Website | www |
Colchester Art Society was founded in 1946 by a group of artists who lived in Colchester and the nearby areas, many of whom were also linked to the Colchester School of Art, which is part of Colchester Institute. The aim of the society was and still is the promotion of the visual arts. [1]
In 1946, a period of renewed optimism after the Second World War, a group of young artists eager to exhibit together founded the Colchester Art Society. Some of its founding members were Roderic Barrett, Edward Bawden, Henry Collins, Reg Hazel, Cedric Morris, John Nash, Joyce Pallot, Rowland Suddaby, [2] and Sylvia St. George. [3] [4]
The Colchester Art Society was founded following a meeting of local artists called by Reg Hazell who at the time was the head of the Colchester School of Arts. The initial meeting was attended by Henry Collins, Roderic Barrett and the children's illustrator Jenny Ward. Following this initial meeting Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines who ran the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing joined the group alongside Joyce Pallot, Sylvia St George and others. The painter John Nash RA was invited to be the Society's first president and remained president until his death in 1977. [5] Other presidents of the Society have included Cedric Morris, Roderic Barrett and Anthony Atkinson. Cedric Morris was a key figure who encouraged the activities of the Colchester Art Society. [6]
The first exhibition of the group showed 37 artists and took place in Colchester Castle. The selection committee decided that the criteria to choose the works would be based purely on merit, regardless of the background, experience or popularity of the artist, a policy which remains. [7] The artist and designer Henry Collins designed the posters for the exhibition alongside the society's logo, which is still used today. [8]
At Colchester Art Society's Autumn Exhibition which was held at Colchester Castle in October 1948, Cedric Morris exhibited a portrait of his then-student, Lucian Freud, [9] which is now part of the Tate's collection. [10]
Since the early years of the foundation of the Colchester Art Society the President, the Chairman of Selectors, and the members of the Panel select works from the exhibitions in order to purchase them and keep them as part of their Permanent Collection. [11]
The Permanent Collection includes a number of works produced by renowned East Anglian artists from the past half century, [12] including: Roderic Barrett, Arthur Lett-Haines, Lucy Harwood (who also belonged to the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing), Blair Hughes-Stanton, John Nash (who was the first president of the Colchester Art Society), Cedric Morris, Bernard Reynolds and Valerie Thornton. Nash bequeathed his personal library and some of his paintings and engravings to The Minories, Colchester, who later sold most of the material to the Tate. [13] [14]
The Colchester Art Society provides its members the opportunity to exhibit artworks, to have informal debates and discussion, as well as to access relevant information and support. The group welcomes various art forms, such as painting, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, and works on paper, among others. [15]
Together with Firstsite the society organised the exhibition Life with Art: Benton End and the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing which opened in December 2021. [16] [17]
Lucian Michael Freud was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933 to escape the rise of Nazism. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War.
George Claude Leon Underwood was a British artist, although primarily known as a sculptor, printmaker and painter, he was also an influential teacher and promotor of African art. His travels in Mexico and West Africa had a substantial influence on his art, particularly on the representation of the human figure in his sculptures and paintings. Underwood is best known for his sculptures cast in bronze, carvings in marble, stone and wood and his drawings. His lifetime's work includes a wide range of media and activities, with an expressive and technical mastery. Underwood did not hold modernism and abstraction in art in high regard and this led to critics often ignoring his work until the 1960s when he came to be viewed as an important figure in the development of modern sculpture in Britain.
Paul Nash was a British surrealist painter and war artist, as well as a photographer, writer and designer of applied art. Nash was among the most important landscape artists of the first half of the twentieth century. He played a key role in the development of Modernism in English art.
John Northcote Nash was a British painter of landscapes and still-lives, and a wood engraver and illustrator, particularly of botanic works. He was the younger brother of the artist Paul Nash.
Sir Cedric Lockwood Morris, 9th Baronet was a British artist, art teacher and plantsman. He was born in Swansea in South Wales, but worked mainly in East Anglia. As an artist he is best known for his portraits, flower paintings and landscapes.
Arthur Lett-Haines, known as Lett Haines, was a British painter and sculptor who experimented in many different media, though he generally characterised himself as "an English surrealist". He was part of a London artistic circle, which included D. H. Lawrence, the Sitwells and Wyndham Lewis, but for most of his life lived with the painter and gardener Cedric Morris in Cornwall, Paris and finally Suffolk.
The East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing was an art learning environment established by Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines in East Anglia in 1937. It was run on very idiosyncratic lines based upon the "free rein" approach that was then current in French academies. It had a great influence on many Suffolk artists and made an important contribution to art teaching in the east of England for forty years.
Bettina Shaw-Lawrence, also known as Betty Shaw-Lawrence, was an English figurative artist. Shaw studied painting and drawing under Fernand Léger, Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines, though she was mainly self-taught and worked professionally until the early 1980s.
Nigel Graeme Henderson (1 April 1917 – 15 May 1985) was an English documentary artist, and photographer.
Firstsite is a visual arts organisation based in Colchester, Essex, which opened in 2011. It was the national Art Fund's Museum of the Year in 2021. The building Firstsite occupy as tenants was designed by Rafael Viñoly and the freehold is retained by Colchester Council. The building is situated in Colchester's "Cultural Quarter" near The Minories, Colchester, fifteen Queen Street, the Norman Colchester Castle, the Natural History Museum, Hollytrees Museum and Colchester's Roman Wall.
The Minories is a Grade II listed building and gardens situated at the east end of High Street in Colchester, Essex, England, near Hollytrees, Gate House and Colchester Castle. It currently houses The Minories Galleries which are run by Colchester School of Art, part of Colchester Institute.
Kim Lim (1936–1997) was a Singaporean-British sculptor and printmaker of Chinese descent. She is most recognized for her abstract wooden and stone-carved sculptures that explore the relationship between art and nature, and works on paper that developed alongside her sculptural practice. Lim's attention to the minute details of curve, line and surface made her an exponent of minimalism.
Roderic Barrett (1920–2000) was a British painter from Colchester, England.
James Dodds is an East Anglian artist whose practice centers on painting, linocut and relief carving. Born in Brightlingsea, Essex, he now lives and works in Wivenhoe producing prints and books as the Jardine Press. He is the son of East Anglian artist Andrew Dodds and has been described as "boatbuilding’s artist laureate". He is arguably East Anglia's most famous contemporary artist after Dame Maggi Hambling.
Henry William Collins and Joyce Millicent Pallot were two artists who lived and worked together for over 60 years. They are best known for their work on a number of large-scale public concrete murals during the 1960s and 1970s, many of which remain around the UK today. Their mural work often included elements relating to the cultural and industrial heritage of the location they were sited and is part of a tradition of muralists that includes William Mitchell and Kenneth Budd amongst others. Henry Collins and Joyce Pallot were both prominent members of the Colchester Art Society and exhibited together on a number of occasions.
Simon Carter is an artist and curator who was born in Chelmsford, Essex in 1961.
The Priseman Seabrook Collection is a British-based private collection founded by the artist Robert Priseman and his wife Ally Seabrook. It is composed of three distinct categories: 21st Century British Painting, 20th and 21st Century British Works on Paper and Contemporary Chinese Works on Paper, and is a collection partner of Art UK.
Esther Margaret Grainger (1912–1990) was a Welsh artist and teacher.
Eva Lucy Harwood was a British artist known for her landscape paintings of East Anglia and Suffolk.
Rosemary Ellen Rutherford was a British artist notable for her paintings and stained glass designs.