The East London Group were a group of artists based in London.[1] They worked and showed together from 1928 to 1936. They were mostly working class, realist painters whose formal education had often stopped at elementary school.
The group developed from an art club at the Bethnal Green Men's Institute to a group of artists showing and selling in London's West End and beyond. They exhibited alongside prominent artists of the day, and attracted enormous press coverage and support, taught by John Albert Cooper, Phyllis Bray, Walter Sickert and others. A few members had trained at the Slade School of Fine Art. The East London Group's drawings and paintings show buildings, streets, and ways of life that no longer exist.
Background
In 1923, a warehouseman, a house decorator, three deck hands waiting for a ship, and a haddock smoker started an art club. It met twice a week at the Bethnal Green Men's Institute in Wolverley Street in East London. They found time and money for materials, despite having families and working long hours on piecework or for poor wages.
The Art Club grew strongly and held its first exhibition in 1924 at the Bethnal Green Museum. The tight-knit community of Bethnal Green turned out in force. There were around 30 active members, 15 of whom showed 88 works in this first show.[2]
Influence of John Cooper and Walter Sickert
John Cooper, who taught at Bethnal Green, eventually severed his connection with it after a disagreement. From the 1924-25 session he began teaching at the Bow and Bromley Evening Institute in Coborn Road, E3. To this he eventually attracted key members of the Bethnal Green Art Club, such as Walter Steggles,[3] Harold Steggles and Elwin Hawthorne,[4] whom he asked to join him at Bow in 1927.
The charismatic Cooper had served in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War and then attended the Slade School of Fine Art. Newly graduated, he was a professional painter of portraits and landscapes, supplementing his income by teaching evening classes. His advice was to paint what was around, straight from life, rather than painting images for greetings cards or copying posters of film stars or seed packets.[5]
Walter Sickert also lectured to and mentored the students. His message was the same as Cooper's: students did not need to go on expensive excursions to find landscapes to paint. ‘There is no need to go to Bognor,’ he said. ‘You can go into the Tube.’[6]
Some artists connected with the Slade occasionally provided teaching assistance and showed with the Group. These included Phyllis Bray (to become Cooper's wife for a period), William Coldstream and Charles George Hamilton Dicker.[7]
Style
East London Group artists were able to see beauty in the most unlikely subjects, bringing ‘a warm feeling to their art which is transmitted to the viewer’.[5]
The drabness of the East End, painted with a muted palette, is reflected in the early works. In the work of Elwin Hawthorne, the absence of people contributes to an almost surreal atmosphere. As the artists began to travel out of the city, the tone of the paintings lightens.
Early success
In April 1927, the Daily Chronicle reported on the Bethnal Green Institute exhibition with headlines such as "Workmen as artists" and "Window cleaner’s work in East End show".[8] Albert Turpin was the window cleaner who went on to become mayor of Bethnal Green, and made it his mission to record in paintings all the houses and streets around his home before the developers destroyed them.[9][10] Other exhibitors included Henry Silk (basket maker),[11]Elwin Hawthorne (errand boy) and C Warren (park-keeper) and B R Swinnerton (piano factory worker).
In December 1928 members of Cooper's Bow classes plus a few invited professional artists, all showing as the East London Art Club, held a large exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. This attracted support from a number of prominent individuals, such as Sir Joseph Duveen the art dealer, Samuel Courtauld, Lord Melchett, Lord Burnham and the writer Arnold Bennett.
The show prompted wide press coverage. ‘Little short of sensational,’ said the influential Studio magazine about the East London Art Club's December 1928 exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The Evening News reported that work was shown from the Club's approximately ‘30 members drawn from Hackney, Whitechapel, East Ham, Poplar, Mile End and so on.’[12]
A number of paintings were bought by Sir Joseph Duveen and by Charles Aitken, Director of the Tate Gallery, for exhibition at the National Gallery, Millbank, known colloquially even then as the Tate Gallery.[13][14]
Part of the exhibition was shown at Millbank in early 1929, indicating ‘what British artisans can do in their spare time’, as the press release put it,[15] and a modified Tate exhibition went on tour to the art gallery in Peel Park, Salford.
A major breakthrough took place when the West End Lefevre Gallery agreed to give Cooper's students a first exhibition, now as the East London Group, in November 1929. Sickert's inclusion, his only showing with the group, was an important draw. Because of wide, complimentary press coverage, the show had to be extended into December.
"One of the most interesting and significant things in the London art season," said the Manchester Guardian about the first Lefevre exhibition. It covered just this one exhibition three times.
The show was an enormous commercial success, too, with interest shown by Mayfair art dealers and high society (including Ramsay MacDonald, Lady Cunard, Viscount D’Abernon, and Edward Marsh, a perceptive collector).[16] The noted critic, T W Earp, particularly praised the work of some artists and so the careers were launched of, for example, William Coldstream, Murroe FitzGerald, Archibald Hattemore, Elwin Hawthorne, Cecil Osborne, Henry Silk, Harold Steggles, Walter Steggles and Albert Turpin.[17] By this time Cooper was an established painter, especially of music and musicians, which feature in some of the group shows.
Eventually he negotiated a five-year group contract, resulting in eight annual Reid & Lefevre exhibitions through to 1936. Throughout the 1930s, a number of solo exhibitions were additionally held at Lefevre and elsewhere. Group exhibitions were also held outside London and members participated in numerous mixed shows, often alongside prominent artists.
1935 saw a touring exhibition of Canada and the US, organised through the Courtauld Institute whose founder, Samuel Courtauld, had remained an enthusiastic patron of the Group.
In 1936, works by Elwin Hawthorne and Walter Steggles were included in Britain's contribution to the 1936 Venice Biennale, alongside well known and established artists.[18]
The last Lefevre show took place in 1936. For personal and professional reasons, John Cooper withdrew from the Group which then wound down. Lefevre believed its role in establishing the artists had been fulfilled.
Cooper's death in 1943 at 49, from sclerosis of the spine, was a major factor preventing the Group reassembling after the Second World War. Several Group members continued to paint but they never exhibited as the East London Group again.
Comparisons are sometimes drawn with the work of other artists. These include:
Edward Hopper (1882-1967) especially his Early Sunday Morning, painted in 1930, the year after Cecil Osborne's 1929 Sunday Morning, Farringdon Road.[21]
The 1920-33 Canadian landscape painters, the Group of Seven (also known as the Algonquin School).
Maurice Utrillo. Paul George Konody of the Daily Mail wrote of the 1930 Lefevre exhibition: ‘If an Utrillo of London is to come into being – a painter who would interpret London not only as we see it but as we feel it – he will come from among the members of the East London Group and his name will either be Elwin Hawthorne or Walter Steggles.’[22]
The Ashington Group (the ‘Pitmen Painters’) who also began, a few years after the East London Group, as untrained amateurs and were influenced by an enlightened teacher.
Current interest
Most of the East London Group's work is held privately, often by members of the artists’ families. Around 80 pieces are in public collections in Britain and abroad.[23]
Awareness of the Group's achievements has been rekindled in recent years.[24][25][26][27][28] There have been a number of exhibitions (in central London[29] and at Bow Arts' Nunnery Gallery[30]) and the publication of a book, From Bow to Biennale by David Buckman.[31]
There is keen bidding at sales, notably Sotheby's[32][33][34] and Christie's South Kensington, and a very active and participatory Twitter account.[35] New exhibitions are planned in Southend (2016), Bow (2017) and Southampton (2017).
Related Research Articles
Walter Richard Sickert was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the mid and late 20th century.
Gino Severini was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classicism and the "return to order" in the decade after the First World War. During his career he worked in a variety of media, including mosaic and fresco. He showed his work at major exhibitions, including the Rome Quadrennial, and won art prizes from major institutions.
The Camden Town Group was a group of English Post-Impressionist artists founded in 1911 and active until 1913. They gathered frequently at the studio of painter Walter Sickert in the Camden Town area of London.
The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. It holds an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries in London, exhibiting works by both members and artists from Britain and abroad whose work has been selected from an annual open submission.
Chris Gollon (1953–2017) was a British artist.
Dame Ethel Walker was a Scottish painter of portraits, flower-pieces, sea-pieces and decorative compositions. From 1936, Walker was a member of The London Group. Her work displays the influence of Impressionism, Puvis de Chavannes, Gauguin and Asian art. Walker achieved considerable success throughout her career, becoming the first female member elected to the New English Art Club in 1900. Walker's works were exhibited widely during her lifetime, at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of Arts and at the Lefevre Gallery. She represented Britain at the Venice Biennale four times, in 1922, 1924, 1928 and 1930. Although Walker proclaimed that 'there is no such thing as a woman artist. There are only two kinds of artist — bad and good', she was elected Honorary President of the Women's International Art Club in 1932. Soon after her death, she was the subject of a major retrospective at the Tate in 1951 alongside Gwen John and Frances Hodgkins. Walker is now acknowledged as a lesbian artist, a fact which critics have noted is boldly apparent in her preference for women sitters and female nudes. It has been suggested that Walker was one of the earliest lesbian artists to explore her sexuality openly in her works. While Walker was contemporarily regarded as one of the foremost British women artists, her influence diminished after her death, perhaps due in part to her celebration of female sexuality. Made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1943, Walker was one of only four women artists to receive the honour as of 2010.
Richard John Killeen is a significant New Zealand painter, sculptor and digital artist.
Leon Kossoff was a British figurative painter known for portraits, life drawings and cityscapes of London, England.
Henry Tonks, FRCS was a British surgeon and later draughtsman and painter of figure subjects, chiefly interiors, and a caricaturist. He became an influential art teacher.
William Logsdail was a prolific English landscape, portrait, and genre painter. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Grosvenor Gallery, the New Gallery (London), and others. He is notable for his realistic London and Venice scenes and his plein air style.
Richard Shone is a British art historian and art critic specializing in British modern art, and from 2003–15 was the editor of The Burlington Magazine.
Cathie Pilkington is a London-based British sculptor represented by Karsten Schubert London. She studied at Edinburgh College of Art and the Royal College of Art, and was elected as a Royal Academician in 2014. She became professor of sculpture at the Royal Academy Schools in 2016.
Elwin Hawthorne (1905–1954) was a British painter, and part of the so-called East London Group. He was often described as an English Utrillo.
Thérèse Lessore was a British artist who worked in oil and watercolour. She was a founder member of the London Group, and the third wife of Walter Sickert.
Margaret Brynhild Parker (1907–1987) was a British illustrator and painter, and part of the East London Group. She signed herself Brynhild Parker.
The Lefevre Gallery was an art gallery in London, England, operated by Alex. Reid & Lefevre Ltd.
Phyllis Bray was a British artist and illustrator known for involvement in the East London Group of artists, for the murals she produced and for illustrating children's books. During her career she also exhibited at the Royal Academy and at several leading London galleries.
Mary Godwin (1887–1960) was a British oil painter, water colourist and etcher, who often chose landscapes, interiors, and figures as subjects. She studied at the Women’s Department of King’s College with John Byam Shaw, and at Westminster Technical Institute with Walter Sickert and Harold Gilman. She was influenced by the Camden Town Group, and joined its successor, The London Group (LG) in 1914.
Cicely Hey (1896–1980) was a British artist known as a painter, sculptor and model-maker. Although born in England she spent much of her career in Wales.
Edward Le Bas RA (1904–1966) was a British artist and art collector.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
