Grosvenor School of Modern Art
33 Warwick Square, the former home of the Grosvenor School of Modern Art (scaffolded, centre)
Active1925 (1925)–1940 (1940)[1]
FounderIain Macnab
Location,
51°29′23″N 0°08′30″W / 51.4896°N 0.1418°W / 51.4896; -0.1418
Campus33 Warwick Square, Pimlico

The Grosvenor School of Modern Art was a private British art school and, in its shortened form ("Grosvenor School"), the name of a brief British-Australian art movement.[2] It was founded in 1925 by the Scottish wood engraver Iain Macnab in his house at 33 Warwick Square in Pimlico, London.[1][3]:31 From 1925 to 1930 Claude Flight ran it with him, and also taught linocutting there; among his students were Sybil Andrews, Cyril Power, Lill Tschudi and William Greengrass.[4]:400

The school

The school had no formal curriculum and students studied what and when they wished. There were day and evening courses: life classes, classes in composition and design, and classes on the history of Modern Art. Frank Rutter taught a course entitled "From Cézanne to Picasso".[3]:31 Macnab's wife, the dancer Helen Wingrave, gave a dance course.[5]:9 Though there was no formal curriculum, all students attended Claude Flight's linocut classes.[6]

The Grosvenor School closed in 1940, merging with the Heatherley School of Fine Art.[7]

Legacy

The school did much to revive interest in printmaking in general, and particularly in the linocut, in the years between the Wars.[8] Artists associated with it have come to be known as the "Grosvenor School", and their work commands high prices.[9]

In June–September 2019, the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London hosted the first major exhibition presenting solely the output of the Grosvenor School alumni in a public museum; it was also the first major exhibition outside Australia to have considerable examples of the works by the Australian alumni Ethel Spowers, Dorrit Black and others.[10]

Alumni

Among those who studied at the school were:

Spowers, Black and Syme became instrumental in organising exhibitions and promoting the school in Australia.

References

  1. 1 2 Hal Bishop (2004). Macnab, Iain, of Barachastlain (1890–1967). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/64517 (subscription required)
  2. Gordon, Samuel; Leaper, Hana; Lock, Tracey; Vann, Philip; Scott, Jennifer (13 August 2019). Gordon, Samuel (ed.). Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking (Exhibition Catalogue) (1st ed.). Philip Wilson Publishers. p. 22. ISBN 978-1-78130-078-7.
  3. 1 2 Mike O'Mahony (2012). Imaging Sport at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art (1929–37); in: Mike Huggins, Mike O'Mahony (eds.) (2012). The Visual in Sport. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9780415585071. p. 19–34.
  4. Stephen Bury (ed.) (2012). Benezit Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators, volume 1, Abbo – Lamp. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199923052.
  5. Lora S. Urbanelli (1988). The Grosvenor School: British Linocuts between the Wars (exhibition catalogue). Providence: Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art. ISBN 9780911517491.
  6. "Lino Cutting and the Grosvenor School of Modern Art". artrepublic. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  7. "Grosvenor School of Art, London (1925–1940)". Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  8. 1 2 Tim Jones (27 June 2014). Wood engraving artist finally won recognition. The Press; available at Christchurch Art Gallery – Te Puna O Waiwhetu. Accessed March 2015.
  9. Colin Gleadell (17 Apr 2012). London Original Print Fair: Prints that move like lightening [sic]. Daily Telegraph.
  10. Gordon, Samuel; Leaper, Hana; Lock, Tracey; Vann, Philip; Scott, Jennifer (13 August 2019). Gordon, Samuel (ed.). Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking (Exhibition Catalogue) (1st ed.). Philip Wilson Publishers. pp. Inside front flap and 24. ISBN 978-1-78130-078-7.
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