Cumberland Market Group
Encyclopedia
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. The group met in the studio of Robert Bevan
Robert Bevan
Robert Polhill Bevan was an English painter, draughtsman and lithographer. He was a founding member of the Camden Town Group, the London Group, and the Cumberland Market Group.-Early life:...
in Cumberland Market
Cumberland Market
Cumberland Market was a London market between Regent's Park and Euston railway station. It was built in the early 19th century and was London's hay and straw market for a hundred years until the late 1920s. An arm of the Regent's Canal was built to the market. The market was surrounded by modest...
, the old hay
Hay
Hay is grass, legumes or other herbaceous plants that have been cut, dried, and stored for use as animal fodder, particularly for grazing livestock such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep. Hay is also fed to pets such as rabbits and guinea pigs...
and straw
Straw
Straw is an agricultural by-product, the dry stalks of cereal plants, after the grain and chaff have been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat. It has many uses, including fuel, livestock bedding and fodder, thatching and...
market off Albany Street
Albany Street
Albany Street is a road in London running from Marylebone Road to Gloucester Gate following the east side of Regent's Park. It is about three-quarters of a mile in length....
, and held one exhibition.
History
Robert BevanRobert Bevan
Robert Polhill Bevan was an English painter, draughtsman and lithographer. He was a founding member of the Camden Town Group, the London Group, and the Cumberland Market Group.-Early life:...
took the rooms on the first floor of 49 Cumberland Market, north of Regent's Park
Regent's Park
Regent's Park is one of the Royal Parks of London. It is in the north-western part of central London, partly in the City of Westminster and partly in the London Borough of Camden...
, in April 1914, after the break-up of the Camden Town Group
Camden Town Group
The Camden Town Group was a group of English Post-Impressionist artists active 1911-1913. They gathered frequently at the studio of painter Walter Sickert in the Camden Town area of London.-History:...
and the formation of its successor, the London Group
London Group
The London Group is an artists' exhibiting society based in London, England, founded in 1913, when the Camden Town Group came together with the English Vorticists and other independent artists to challenge the domination of the Royal Academy, which had become unadventurous and conservative....
. He had been a founder member of both organizations. He held meetings there with his friends, and these became a formalised group towards the end of the year, founded by him with fellow Camden Town Group
Camden Town Group
The Camden Town Group was a group of English Post-Impressionist artists active 1911-1913. They gathered frequently at the studio of painter Walter Sickert in the Camden Town area of London.-History:...
members, Charles Ginner
Charles Ginner
Charles Isaac Ginner was a painter of landscape and urban subjects. Born in the south of France at Cannes, of British parents, in 1910 he settled in London, where he was an associate of Spencer Gore and Harold Gilman and a key member of the Camden Town Group.-Early years and studies:Charles Isaac...
and Harold Gilman
Harold Gilman
The British artist Harold John Wilde Gilman was a painter of interiors, portraits and landscapes, and a founder-member of the Camden Town Group.-Early life and studies:...
, who began to work with the style called Neo-Realism
Neorealism (art)
In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...
.
They defined what they did as exploring the shapes and colours of daily life (in particular those of north-west London), while also paying attention to their proper disposition compositionally and maintaining sensitivity to the medium of paint itself as key to an expressive image; the strong emphasis on natural observation was a differentiation from the Camden Town Group. These principles were announced in a manifesto by Ginner published in New Age on 1 January 1914, and also employed as the preface to a joint show that year by Gilman and Ginner. It spoke against the "decorative" features of Post-Impressionist
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
followers, as well as attacking academic art.
John Nash (artist)
John Northcote Nash CBE RA was a British painter of landscape and still-life, wood-engraver and illustrator, particularly of botanic works.-Biography:...
. In April of that year the only exhibition of the Cumberland Market Group was held in the Goupil Gallery
Goupil & Cie
Goupil & Cie was a leading art dealership in 19th century France, with headquarters in Paris. Step by step, Goupil established a worldwide trade with reproductions of paintings and sculptures, with a network of branches in London, Brussels, The Hague, Berlin and Vienna, as well as in New York and...
. The group was subsequently enlarged by the addition of the American artist Edward McKnight Kauffer
Edward McKnight Kauffer
Edward McKnight Kauffer was an influential American-born artist noted for his avant garde graphic design and poster art, especially in England....
and by Christopher Nevinson, but it held no further formal exhibitions. From 1916 to 1917 a School of Painting was run in Soho, based on the group's artistic philosophy. Goupil’s continued to be of help by allowing the group’s Saturday afternoon "At Homes" to be moved to their Grey Room. Although not officially dissolved, the group lapsed after Gilman's death in 1919.
In 1921 Bevan organised, with Ginner, an exhibition of Un Groupe de Peintres Anglais Modernes at the Galerie Druet in Paris to present their own work and that of Stanislawa de Karlowska
Stanislawa de Karlowska
Stanisława de Karłowska was a Polish-born artist, who was married to the Camden Town Group painter Robert Bevan.-Life and work:Stanisława de Karłowska was the daughter of Aleksander de Karłowski and Paulina z Tuchołków...
, Gilman
Harold Gilman
The British artist Harold John Wilde Gilman was a painter of interiors, portraits and landscapes, and a founder-member of the Camden Town Group.-Early life and studies:...
, and the next generation artists E.M. O’Rourke Dickey, McKnight Kauffer
Edward McKnight Kauffer
Edward McKnight Kauffer was an influential American-born artist noted for his avant garde graphic design and poster art, especially in England....
, John Nash
John Nash (artist)
John Northcote Nash CBE RA was a British painter of landscape and still-life, wood-engraver and illustrator, particularly of botanic works.-Biography:...
, Edward Wadsworth
Edward Wadsworth
Edward Alexander Wadsworth was an English artist, most famous for his close association with Vorticism. He painted, often in tempera, coastal views, abstracts, portraits and still-life...
, William Roberts
William Roberts
-People:* William Roberts , Anglican bishop* Sir William Roberts , British Member of Parliament and father of Sir William Roberts, 1st Baronet...
and Ethelbert White.
Legacy
A Countryman in Town: Robert Bevan and the Cumberland Market Group was held at Southampton City Art GallerySouthampton City Art Gallery
The Southampton City Art Gallery is an art gallery in Southampton, southern England. It is located in the Civic Centre on Commercial Road.The gallery's art collection covers six centuries of European art history, with over 3,500 works. It is housed in an example of 1930s municipal architecture...
, September 26 – December 14, 2008. It moved to Abbot Hall Art Gallery
Abbot Hall Art Gallery
Abbot Hall Art Gallery is a museum and gallery in Kendal, England. Abbot Hall was built in 1759 by Colonel George Wilson, the second son of Daniel Wilson of Dallam Tower, a large house and country estate nearby. It was built on the site of the old Abbot’s Hall, roughly where the museum is today...
, Kendal, January 13 – March 21, 2009.