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| Society of Graphic Art | |
|---|---|
| Name | Society of Graphic Art |
| Formation | 1919 |
| Founder | Frank Short |
| Type | Arts organization |
| Headquarters | London |
| Region served | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Society of Graphic Art The Society of Graphic Art was a British organization founded in 1919 to promote printmaking, drawing, and graphic techniques. It brought together practitioners, patrons, and institutions to advance the status of print media in exhibitions, publications, and education. Over decades it intersected with major artists, galleries, schools, and cultural bodies in Britain and internationally.
Founded in the post‑World War I period, the Society emerged amid debates that engaged figures linked to the Royal Academy of Arts, Tate Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, British Museum, and provincial galleries such as the Manchester Art Gallery and National Museum Cardiff. Early meetings included artists associated with the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, the Art Workers' Guild, and the London Group, while patrons from households tied to the Courtauld Institute of Art and the National Gallery provided financial support. The interwar years saw exchanges with printmakers connected to Salford Art Gallery, Birmingham School of Art, and the Slade School of Fine Art, as the Society displayed works alongside traveling exhibitions to cities such as Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Bristol. During World War II the Society coordinated with commissions related to the War Artists' Advisory Committee and institutions linked to the Imperial War Museum and the Ministry of Information. In the postwar era, contacts extended to international venues like the Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Pompidou, and to cultural treaties and exhibition exchanges with the British Council and the UNESCO cultural programs.
The Society promoted printmaking through advocacy with cultural bodies such as the Arts Council of Great Britain, collaborations with the Royal College of Art, and liaison with university departments including University of Oxford and University of Cambridge. Activities emphasized technical development via workshops associated with the Wolff Gallery, demonstrations by members affiliated with the Royal Society of Sculptors, and pedagogy linked to the Glasgow School of Art. It organized lectures drawing speakers from institutions like the Courtauld Institute of Art and curators from the Ashmolean Museum and pursued outreach with municipal galleries including the Leeds Art Gallery and the Walker Art Gallery.
Membership comprised established and emerging practitioners with connections to bodies like the Royal Watercolour Society, the Society of British Artists, and the New English Art Club. Governance structures mirrored committees found in organizations such as the Arts Council and the British Museum Friends, with chairs elected from ranks of members who also taught at the Royal Academy Schools, the Central Saint Martins, and the Camberwell College of Arts. Honorary memberships and patronage included figures associated with the National Portrait Gallery, the Scottish National Gallery, and provincial trusts such as the Tate St Ives and private foundations tied to collectors like those of the Courtauld Gallery.
The Society mounted regular exhibitions at London venues that engaged with galleries such as the Royal Academy of Arts galleries, the Fine Art Society, and the Grosvenor Gallery, and coordinated touring shows to venues including the Nottingham Castle Museum and the Shipley Art Gallery. Catalogues and monographs issued by the Society entered collections of the British Library and were cited in catalogues raisonnés alongside publications by the Phaidon Press and exhibition catalogues of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Occasional collaborations saw works reproduced in journals and periodicals associated with the Burlington Magazine, the Studio (magazine), and the Art Journal, while some themed exhibitions intersected with retrospectives at institutions such as the Imperial War Museum and the National Galleries of Scotland.
Members and exhibitors included artists and designers with links to the Slade School of Fine Art, the Royal College of Art, and movements associated with figures present in collections of the Tate Modern and the Museum of Modern Art. Representative names in the Society’s history appeared alongside artists whose works are in the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Collaborators and guests in Society activities were connected to personalities and institutions such as the Henry Moore Foundation, the Barbara Hepworth Estate, the Turner Prize circle, and émigré communities tied to the Royal West of England Academy and continental museums like the Musée d'Orsay.
The Society influenced printmaking pedagogy in training centers such as the Slade School of Fine Art, the Glasgow School of Art, and the Royal College of Art, and its exhibitions helped shape acquisition policies at the Tate Gallery, the British Museum, and regional collections including the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Walker Art Gallery. Its legacy appears in later artists’ societies, curatorial practices at institutions like the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in cataloguing standards adopted by archives such as the National Art Library. The Society’s networks fostered connections between British printmakers and international counterparts represented at the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the State Hermitage Museum, sustaining printmaking as a vital strand of twentieth‑century and contemporary visual culture.
Category:Arts organizations based in the United Kingdom