The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was formed from the merger of the Camden Town Group, an all-male group, and the Fitzroy Street Group. It holds open submission exhibitions for members and guest artists.
The London Group is composed of working artists. All forms of art are represented. The group functions democratically without dogma or style. [1] It has a written constitution, annually elected officers, working committees and a selection committee. There are usually between 80 and 100 members and an annual fee is charged to cover gallery hire and organisational costs. The group has no permanent exhibition venue and rents gallery space in London, most recently at the Menier Gallery, Bankside Gallery and Cello Factory. New members are elected most years, from nominations made by current members. [1]
The London Group was founded in 1913, when the Camden Town Group came together with the English Vorticists and other independent artists to challenge the domination of the Royal Academy of Arts, which had become unadventurous and conservative. [2]
The London Group emerged from a merger of the Fitzroy Street Group and the male-member-only Camden Town Group organization. [1] Founding members included the patron-artist Ethel Sands, artist Anna Hope Hudson, [3] Walter Sickert, Jacob Epstein, Wyndham Lewis, Robert Bevan and his wife Stanislawa de Karlowska, and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. [4] Other early female members included Marjorie Sherlock, [5] Mary Godwin, [6] and Ruth Doggett. [7] Throughout its history, The London Group has held open submission exhibitions to encourage and support other artists struggling to get their work shown in public. The open submissions are shown along with the work of existing members and guest artists. [5] In 2011, the open exhibition presented over 140 artists at the Cello Factory. [1]
In 2013–14, the Ben Uri Gallery celebrated The London Group's 100th anniversary with an exhibition, Uproar: The First 50 Years of The London Group 1913-1963, curated by Rachel Dickson and Sarah MacDougall. [4] [8] The exhibition highlighted the role played by women and emigre artists in its membership. [9]
One of the oldest standing artist-led organisations in the world, The London Group continues to exist today with over 80 members.
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.
Charles Isaac Ginner was a British painter of landscape and urban subjects. Born in the south of France at Cannes, of British parents, in 1910 he settled in London, where he was an associate of Spencer Gore and Harold Gilman and a key member of the Camden Town Group.
Spencer Frederick Gore was a British painter of landscapes, music-hall scenes and interiors, usually with single figures. He was the first president of the Camden Town Group, and was influenced by the Post-Impressionists.
Bernard Meninsky was a British painter of figures and landscapes in oils, watercolour and gouache, a draughtsman and a teacher.
James Dickson Innes was a Welsh painter, mainly of mountain landscapes but occasionally of figure subjects. He worked in both oils and watercolours.
Gertrude Anna Bertha Hermes was a British wood-engraver and sculptor. Hermes was a member of the English Wood Engraving Society (1925–31) and exhibited with the Society of Wood Engravers, the Royal Academy and The London Group during the 1930s.
Harold John Wilde Gilman was a British painter of interiors, portraits and landscapes, and a founder-member of the Camden Town Group.
The Whitechapel Boys were a loosely-knit group of Anglo-Jewish writers and artists of the early 20th century. It is named after Whitechapel, which contained one of London's main Jewish settlements and from which many of its members came. These members included Mark Gertler, Isaac Rosenberg, David Bomberg, Joseph Leftwich, Jacob Kramer, Morris Goldstein, Stephen Winsten, John Rodker, Lazarus Aaronson and its only female member, Clara Birnberg.
Malcolm Cyril Drummond was an English painter and printmaker, noted for his paintings of urban scenes and interiors. Influenced by the Post-Impressionists and Walter Sickert, he was a member of the Camden Town Group and the London Group.
Robert Polhill Bevan was a British painter, draughtsman and lithographer who was married to the Polish-born artist Stanisława de Karłowska. He was a founding member of the Camden Town Group, the London Group, and the Cumberland Market Group.
John Mather was a Scottish-Australian plein-air painter and etcher.
Marjorie Sherlock (1897-1973) was a British painter and etcher. Three books of her etchings were published between 1925 and 1932. Her painting Liverpool Street Station, now in the Government Art Collection, was first shown at the Royal Academy in 1917 and in 1987 was at 10 Downing Street when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Ethel Sands was an American-born artist and hostess who lived in England from childhood. She studied art in Paris, where she met her life partner Anna Hope Hudson. Her works were generally still lifes and interiors, often of Château d'Auppegard that she shared with Hudson. Sands was a Fitzroy Street Group and London Group member. Her works are in London's National Portrait Gallery and other public collections. In 1916, she became a naturalised British citizen. Although a major art patron and an artist, she is most remembered as a hostess for the cultural elite, including Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Roger Fry and Augustus John.
Anna Hope Hudson (1869–1957) was an American-born artist who lived and worked in France and England. She was a founding member of the London Group, and the life partner of likewise artist Ethel Sands.
The Fitzroy Street Group was an organisation created to promote and support artists. It was established in 1907 by Walter Sickert and merged in 1913 with the Camden Town Group to form the London Group.
Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot was an artist and painter from Liverpool who became known for his depictions of atmospheric pastoral scenes and sepia illustrations of figures. Lightfoot showed great talent as a student whilst at the Slade School of Art and when he exhibited with the Camden Town Group, but he killed himself at a young age. His obituary in The Times stated, 'All artists and critics.... were united in believing that Lightfoot would have a most distinguished career in the highest rank of painting.'
Eva Frankfurther was a German-born British artist known for her depictions of the immigrant communities of the East End of London in the 1950s.
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.
Ruth Thornhill Doggett was an English artist and a member of the London Group, known for her control of colour and composition in landscapes, still lifes and interiors.