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| The London Group | |
|---|---|
| Name | The London Group |
| Formation | 1913 |
| Type | Artist collective |
| Headquarters | London |
| Region served | United Kingdom |
| Notable members | Wyndham Lewis; Walter Sickert; Jacob Epstein; Henri Gaudier-Brzeska; Vanessa Bell; Roger Fry |
The London Group The London Group formed in 1913 as an artists' collective in London that sought to unite avant-garde painters, sculptors, and printmakers excluded from established institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts, the New English Art Club, and provincial academies. Founded by members associated with the Fitzroy Street Group and the Frank Rutter circle, it provided a platform for modernist practices displaced by conservative exhibition policies of the early 20th century. The Group became a persistent forum connecting figures from movements including Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Vorticism, and Surrealism across decades of British cultural life.
The Group emerged from meetings convened by artists linked to Walter Sickert and the Omega Workshops milieu, responding to the exclusionary selections at venues like the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and the Grafton Galleries. Early 20th-century debates involving institutions such as the National Gallery and critics like Roger Fry and Clive Bell shaped its ethos. The first exhibitions in 1913 and 1914 included artists associated with the Camden Town Group, the English Cubism proponents, and continental figures influenced by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse. World events such as World War I and interwar cultural shifts affected membership and programming; the Group continued exhibiting through the interwar years alongside disruptions of World War II and postwar reconstruction. Throughout the 20th century, it accommodated avant-garde currents from British modernism to Pop Art, adapting during periods marked by institutions like the Tate Gallery expanding commitments to modern collections.
Membership has included a wide range of prominent and lesser-known practitioners: painters such as Walter Sickert, Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, Cedric Morris, William Coldstream, Francis Bacon; sculptors including Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth; and writers/critics linked to visual practice such as Roger Fry, Clive Bell, and Frank Rutter. Early modernists such as Wyndham Lewis and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska associated with Vorticism exhibited alongside newer arrivals like Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, John Piper, and later figures connected to Art & Language, Gilbert & George, and David Hockney. International contacts brought links with Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Amedeo Modigliani, and Kurt Schwitters through exchange exhibitions. Lesser-known but influential members included Ethel Walker, Jacob Kramer, and Dora Carrington, while postwar contributors encompassed Peter Lanyon, Bridget Riley, Victor Pasmore, and Howard Hodgkin.
The Group organized annual and biennial exhibitions in venues such as the Grafton Galleries, the Redfern Gallery, and later spaces in Soho and Camden. Touring shows connected the Group to regional galleries like the Tate Modern and the Manchester Art Gallery and to international showcases in Paris, Berlin, and New York City. Activities included curated themed shows, small-group displays, print and sculpture salons, and collaborative projects with institutions such as the British Council and the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Catalogues and exhibition brochures occasionally featured texts by critics like Lionel Trilling and A. L. Morton and curators from the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The Group also facilitated artist-led talks, portfolio exchanges, and experimental performance collaborations with figures from the Bloomsbury Group and the Surrealist movement.
Over more than a century the collective contributed to shaping public reception of avant-garde art in Britain, influencing the development of institutions such as the Tate Britain, Barbican Centre, and the British Museum's modern collections. Its role in nurturing careers helped position members within national narratives alongside movements like British Impressionism and Postwar Abstraction. The Group’s exhibitions provided early public exposure for artists later represented in retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art and the National Portrait Gallery, and its networks intersected with patrons and dealers including Gagosian Gallery predecessors and the founders of the Redfern and Whitechapel galleries. Scholarship on the Group appears in catalogues raisonnés, monographs on Francis Bacon and Barbara Hepworth, and institutional histories produced by the Tate and the National Galleries of Scotland.
The Group has operated as a membership-based body with elected committees, selection panels, and rotating presidencies. Governance practices included annual general meetings, juried selection processes, and membership ballots often administered by established artists and critics from institutions like the Royal College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. Funding sources combined membership subscriptions, exhibition fees, private patronage from collectors linked to Sotheby's and Christie's circles, and occasional grants coordinated with local authorities and national arts bodies such as the Arts Council of Great Britain. Archive materials relating to minutes and membership rolls are held in institutional repositories including the Tate Archive, the British Library, and university special collections at University of London and Courtauld Institute of Art.
Category:British artist groups