Leeds Arts Club
Encyclopedia
The Leeds Arts Club was founded in 1903 by the Leeds
school teacher Alfred Orage and Yorkshire
textile manufacture Holbrook Jackson
, and was probably one of the most advanced centres for modernist
thinking in Britain in the pre-First World War period.
The Leeds Arts Club, founded by Leeds
school teacher Alfred Orage and Yorkshire
textile manufacture Holbrook Jackson
, was an iconoclastic organisation that mixed radical socialist and anarchist politics with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
, Suffragette
Feminism
, the spiritualism of the Theosophical Society
and modernist art and poetry into a heady mixture. It had close associations with the Independent Labour Party
, the co-operative movement and the early Fabian Society
. At its weekly meetings it would often discuss the connections between art, spiritualism, philosophy and politics.
In 1907 Orage and Jackson left Leeds and moved to London to edit the hugely influential cultural and political journal The New Age
. Following their departure the Arts Club came under the sway of Frank Rutter
, the founder of the Allied Artists Association
and newly appointed Director of Leeds City Art Gallery, and Michael Sadler
, the new Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds
. Under their leadership the Arts Club maintained its interest in the relationship between radical politics, spiritualism and art, but this was expanded to encompass early psychoanalysis
and, most significantly, abstract art
.
Rutter initially had plans to create a modern art collection at the Leeds City Art Gallery, but had been frustrated in this aim by "boorish" local councillors.He co-founded the Leeds Art Collections Fund with Sadler, to help acquisitions and shows, among one in June 1913 of Post-Impressionism
held at the Arts Club, which was reactivated by the new activity. The discussions there about contemporary art, and the presence of Rutter, had a significant influence on the thinking of Herbert Read
(1893–1968), who turned 20 in December 1913.
Using his personal links with Wassily Kandinsky
in Munich
, Sadler built up a remarkable collection of expressionist and abstract expressionist art at a time when such art was either unknown or dismissed in London, even by well-known promoters of modernism such as Roger Fry
. Most notable in his collection was Kandinsky's abstract painting Fragment for Composition VII, of 1912, which was in Leeds and on display at the Leeds Arts Club in 1913. He also owned Paul Gauguin
's celebrated work "The Vision After the Sermon". According to Patrick Heron
, Kandinsky even visited the Arts Club in Leeds before the First World War.
and the little known, but remarkable, painter Bruce Turner.
It also was the seed ground from which the eminent art critic and theorist Herbert Read
emerged, and Henry Moore
has been linked to it. If one takes Orage and Jackson's New Age as England's equivalent to the German expressionist journal Der Sturm
, then it seems reasonable to view the Leeds Arts Club as the centre of English Expressionism.
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
school teacher Alfred Orage and Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
textile manufacture Holbrook Jackson
Holbrook Jackson
George Holbrook Jackson was a British journalist, writer and publisher. He was recognised as one of the leading bibliophiles of his time.-Biography:...
, and was probably one of the most advanced centres for modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
thinking in Britain in the pre-First World War period.
History
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
school teacher Alfred Orage and Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
textile manufacture Holbrook Jackson
Holbrook Jackson
George Holbrook Jackson was a British journalist, writer and publisher. He was recognised as one of the leading bibliophiles of his time.-Biography:...
, was an iconoclastic organisation that mixed radical socialist and anarchist politics with the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
, Suffragette
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
Feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, the spiritualism of the Theosophical Society
Theosophical Society
The Theosophical Society is an organization formed in 1875 to advance the spiritual principles and search for Truth known as Theosophy. The original organization, after splits and realignments has several successors...
and modernist art and poetry into a heady mixture. It had close associations with the Independent Labour Party
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
, the co-operative movement and the early Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...
. At its weekly meetings it would often discuss the connections between art, spiritualism, philosophy and politics.
The New Age
The New Age was a British literary magazine, noted for its wide influence under the editorship of A. R. Orage from 1907 to 1922. It began life in 1894 as a publication of the Christian Socialist movement; but in 1907 as a radical weekly edited by Joseph Clayton, it was struggling...
. Following their departure the Arts Club came under the sway of Frank Rutter
Frank Rutter
Francis Vane Phipson Rutter was a British art critic, curator and activist.In 1903, he became art critic for The Sunday Times, a position which he held for the rest of his life...
, the founder of the Allied Artists Association
Allied Artists Association
The Allied Artists Association was an art exhibiting society based in London in the early 20th century.-History:The Allied Artists Association was founded by Frank Rutter, art critic of The Sunday Times newspaper, in 1908....
and newly appointed Director of Leeds City Art Gallery, and Michael Sadler
Michael Ernest Sadler
Sir Michael Ernest Sadler KCSI was a British historian, educationalist and university administrator. He worked at the universities of Manchester and Leeds. He was a champion of the public school system.-Early life and education:...
, the new Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
. Under their leadership the Arts Club maintained its interest in the relationship between radical politics, spiritualism and art, but this was expanded to encompass early psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
and, most significantly, abstract art
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
.
Rutter initially had plans to create a modern art collection at the Leeds City Art Gallery, but had been frustrated in this aim by "boorish" local councillors.He co-founded the Leeds Art Collections Fund with Sadler, to help acquisitions and shows, among one in June 1913 of Post-Impressionism
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...
held at the Arts Club, which was reactivated by the new activity. The discussions there about contemporary art, and the presence of Rutter, had a significant influence on the thinking of Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
(1893–1968), who turned 20 in December 1913.
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Sadler built up a remarkable collection of expressionist and abstract expressionist art at a time when such art was either unknown or dismissed in London, even by well-known promoters of modernism such as Roger Fry
Roger Fry
Roger Eliot Fry was an English artist and art critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developments in French painting, to which he gave the name Post-Impressionism...
. Most notable in his collection was Kandinsky's abstract painting Fragment for Composition VII, of 1912, which was in Leeds and on display at the Leeds Arts Club in 1913. He also owned Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
's celebrated work "The Vision After the Sermon". According to Patrick Heron
Patrick Heron
Patrick Heron , was an English painter, writer and designer, based in St. Ives, Cornwall.- Early life :...
, Kandinsky even visited the Arts Club in Leeds before the First World War.
Influence
In many respects the Leeds Arts Club can be seen as the closest England came to a genuine expressionist art movement, and this was accentuated not only by its interests, which mirror those seen in German expressionist art groups of the time, but in the Club's direct links to Kandinsky in Germany. It also produced its own expressionist artists, including Jacob KramerJacob Kramer
Jacob Kramer was a Ukrainian-born painter who spent all of his working life in England.-Life and work:...
and the little known, but remarkable, painter Bruce Turner.
It also was the seed ground from which the eminent art critic and theorist Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
emerged, and Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
has been linked to it. If one takes Orage and Jackson's New Age as England's equivalent to the German expressionist journal Der Sturm
Der Sturm
Der Sturm was a magazine covering the expressionism movement founded in Berlin in 1910 by Herwarth Walden. It ran weekly until monthly in 1914, and became a quarterly in 1924 until it ceased publication in 1932....
, then it seems reasonable to view the Leeds Arts Club as the centre of English Expressionism.