New English Art Club

The New English Art Club was founded in 1886 by former Royal Academicians, such as John Singer Sargent, Philip Wilson Steer, John Lavery and Frederick Brown, as well as George Clausen and Alexander Stanhope Forbes, as a reaction against the restrictive and parochial attitude to the Royal Academy. It was considered to be the modern wing of British art up to the turn of the century. The Newlyn and Glasgow Schools dominated the Club until 1889 when their position was challenged by the London Impressionists led by Walter Richard Sickert. The Slade School of Art infiltrated the ranks in the 1890s with younger men such as Walter Russell, William Rothenstein, Augustus John, Harold Gilman, Spencer Gore and Lucien Pissarro. The more reactionary faction returned to the Royal Academy in 1910 and the more progressive formed the Camden Town Group. The New English Art Club, which was the first of many independent exhibiting societies, contributed to the introduction of French studio practices of life drawing and modified plein-air techniques in more advanced London art schools, and is still in existence.

Extract from 'Handbook of Modern Painting, 1900-1980', edited by Alan Windsor.