Perfect Moderns
A History of the Camden Town Group
Wendy Baron(Author)
Ashgate Publishing Limited
Published on 24. August 2000
Book
Hardback
180 pages
978-1-84014-291-4 (ISBN)
Description
Camden Town, in north-west London, gave its name to a style of painting and to a society of artists - the Camden Town Group - which held three exhibitions in 1911 and 1912. Both the style and the idea of creating an exhibiting society were formed by the interchange of ideas and influences at 19 Fitzroy Street, where in 1907, Walter Sickert first organized a number of painters - the Fitzroy Street Group - to contribute jointly to the rent of a studio. The style encompassed paintings domestic in scale, unpretentious in subject matter, informal and lively in execution. Its favourite themes included humble models, nude or clothed, shabby bed-sitters; domestic still lives; London townscapes and landscapes studied on visits to the country and abroad. Sickert's own sombre paintings, in particular the Camden Town Murder series, have come to represent the group's oeuvre but, in this text, the author explores the range of work created through and beyond the heyday of Camden Town painting by his younger colleagues, in particular Spencer Gore, Harold Gilman, Charles Ginner, Robert Bevan and Malcolm Drummond.
She traces not only the history of the Camden Town Group, but also how its disingegration and reabsorption by the Fitzroy Street Group spawned the London Group in 1913. Her account aims to give substance and context to the rival societies, conflicting allegiances and changing priorities of painters before the outbreak of war in 1914. The volume contains full catalogues of publicly owned paintings by Walter Bayes, Bevan, Drummond, Gilman, Ginner, Gore, J.B. Manson, J.D. Innes, Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot and William Ratcliffe.
She traces not only the history of the Camden Town Group, but also how its disingegration and reabsorption by the Fitzroy Street Group spawned the London Group in 1913. Her account aims to give substance and context to the rival societies, conflicting allegiances and changing priorities of painters before the outbreak of war in 1914. The volume contains full catalogues of publicly owned paintings by Walter Bayes, Bevan, Drummond, Gilman, Ginner, Gore, J.B. Manson, J.D. Innes, Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot and William Ratcliffe.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
24 colour and 40 b&w illustrations, indexes
Dimensions
Height: 238 mm
Width: 292 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-84014-291-4 (9781840142914)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
Sickert - the new English art club and the "London impressionists"; Sickert - prelude to exile; Sickert abroad 1898-1905; Sickert in Camden Town; Sickert - return to London and relationship with Gore; birth of the Fitzroy Street Group; Camden Town painting; the Allied Artists' Association and the expansion of the Fitzroy Street Group; London scenes in Camden Town painting; the Fitzroy Street Group in 1910 - "Manet and the post-impressionists" at the Grafton Gallery; formation of the Camden Town Group; 1911 - the first two exhibitions of the Camden Town Group; expansion of the Camden Town Group - first ideas; 1912 - members' activities; the third Camden Town Group exhibition and the second post-impressionist exhibition; 1913 - one-man exhibitions by members of teh Camden Town Group; art politics and the Fitzroy Street Group in 1913; "post-impressionists and the futurists" at the Dore Galleries; formation of the London Group; factions and Sickert's resignation.