The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternate venue to the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

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History

Young English artists returning from studying art in Paris mounted the first exhibition of the New English Art Club in April 1886. Among them were Thomas Cooper Gotch

Thomas Cooper Gotch

Thomas Cooper Gotch was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter and book illustrator, and brother of John Alfred Gotch the noted architect.-Early life:...

, Frank Bramley

Frank Bramley

Frank Bramley was an English post-impressionist genre painter of the Newlyn School.-Life and work:Bramley was born in Sibsey in Lincolnshire and studied at the Lincoln School of Art from 1873 to 1878, later under Charles Verlat at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp from 1879 to 1882...

, John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent

John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...

, Philip Wilson Steer

Philip Wilson Steer

Philip Wilson Steer OM was a British painter of landscape and occasional portraits and figure studies. He was a leading figure in the Impressionist movement in Britain.-Life and work:...

, George Clausen

George Clausen

Sir George Clausen RA , was an artist working in oil and watercolour, etching, mezzotint, dry point and occasionally lithographs. He was knighted in 1927.-Biography:...

 and Stanhope Forbes

Stanhope Forbes

Stanhope Alexander Forbes R.A., , was an artist and member of the influential Newlyn school of painters...

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Early exhibitions were held in the Egyptian Hall

Egyptian Hall

For the Glasgow building see The Egyptian Halls.The Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly, London, was an Exhibition hall built in the ancient Egyptian style in 1812, to the designs of Peter Frederick Robinson.-History:...

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The Impressionist

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

 style was well-represented at the NEAC, in comparison to the old-school academic art shown at the Royal Academy. For a time, the NEAC was seen as a stepping-stone to Royal Academy membership. Today the NEAC continues in a realistic, figurative style, while the Royal Academy has embraced abstract and conceptual art.

Current NEAC members include Peter Brown

Peter Brown (British artist)

Peter Edward Mackenzie Brown is a British Impressionist painter popularly known as "Pete the Street" from his practice of working on location in all weathers...

, Frederick Cuming

Frederick Cuming (artist)

Frederik George Rees Cuming RA, normally known as Fred Cuming, , is a contemporary British landscape painter, who works in a traditional manner.-Life and art:...

, Anthony Green

Anthony Green (painter)

Anthony Green is an English realist painter and printmaker best known for his paintings of his own middle-class domestic life. His works sometimes use compound perspectives and polygonal forms—particularly with large, irregularly shaped canvasses...

, Ken Howard

Ken Howard (artist)

Kenneth Howard - Artistic Genius Kenneth Howard OBE RA is an English artist and painter. He is President of the New English Art Club.-Life and art:...

 and Charles Williams

Charles Williams (artist)

Charles Williams is a British artist. He is a founder member of the Stuckist art group and a member of the New English Art Club.-Life and work:Charles Williams was born in Evanston, Illinois USA and raised in England...

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Historic NEAC members and exhibitors include Thomas Kennington (founder member and first secretary), Frank Bramley

Frank Bramley

Frank Bramley was an English post-impressionist genre painter of the Newlyn School.-Life and work:Bramley was born in Sibsey in Lincolnshire and studied at the Lincoln School of Art from 1873 to 1878, later under Charles Verlat at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp from 1879 to 1882...

 (foundation member) , Alfred William Rich

Alfred William Rich

Alfred William Rich , was an English watercolourist, teacher and author.-Life and work:Rich was born between Scaynes Hill and Lindfield in Sussex...

, Margaret Preston

Margaret Preston

Margaret Preston was a well-known Australian artist. She was highly influential during the 1920s to 1940s for her modernist works as a painter and printmaker and for introducing Aboriginal motifs into contemporary art.-Early life:...

, Walter Sickert

Walter Sickert

Walter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....

, Augustus John

Augustus John

Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....

, Charles Wellington Furse

Charles Wellington Furse

Charles Wellington Furse was an English painter.He was born at Staines, the son of the Rev. C. W. Furse, archdeacon of Westminster, and rector of St John's, Smith Square and descended collaterally from Sir Joshua Reynolds; and in his short span of life achieved such rare excellence as a portrait...

, William Rothenstein

William Rothenstein

Sir William Rothenstein was an English painter, draughtsman and writer on art.-Life and work:William Rothenstein was born into a German-Jewish family in Bradford, West Yorkshire. His father, Moritz, emigrated from Germany in 1859 to work in Bradford's burgeoning textile industry...

, Lindsay Bernard Hall

Lindsay Bernard Hall

Lindsay Bernard Hall was an English-born Australian artist and art gallery director.Hall was born at Garston, Liverpool, England, the son of a broker of the same family as Captain Basil Hall, writer of books of travel. Hall was well educated and grew up in an atmosphere of culture...

, Thomas Cooper Gotch

Thomas Cooper Gotch

Thomas Cooper Gotch was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter and book illustrator, and brother of John Alfred Gotch the noted architect.-Early life:...

, Mary Sargant Florence

Mary Sargant Florence

Mary Sargant Florence was a British painter of figure subjects, mural decorations in fresco and occasional landscapes in watercolour and pastel. She was born in London, née Sargant, sister of the sculptor F.W. Sargant. She studied in Paris under Luc-Olivier Merson and at the Slade School under...

, Henry Strachey

Henry Strachey (artist)

Henry Strachey was an English painter and art critic.He was born in 1863, the son of Sir Edward Strachey and was a cousin of Lytton Strachey....

, Clare Atwood

Clare Atwood

Clare 'Tony' Atwood was a British painter of portraits, still life, landscapes, interiors and decorative flower subjects...

, Eve Garnett

Eve Garnett

Eve Garnett was an English author and illustrator. She was educated at two schools in Devon and at the Alice Ottley School in Worcester...

, Frank McEwen

Frank McEwen

Francis Jack "Frank" McEwen, OBE was an English artist, teacher, and museum administrator. He is best remembered today for his efforts to bring attention to the work of Shona artists in Rhodesia, and for helping to found the National Gallery of Zimbabwe...

, James Jebusa Shannon

James Jebusa Shannon

Sir James Jebusa Shannon , Anglo-American artist, was born in Auburn, New York, and at the age of eight was taken by his parents to Canada....

, James Jebusa Shannon

James Jebusa Shannon

Sir James Jebusa Shannon , Anglo-American artist, was born in Auburn, New York, and at the age of eight was taken by his parents to Canada....

, Cecil Mary Leslie

Cecil Mary Leslie

Cecil Mary Leslie was an engraver, portrait painter, sculptor and illustrator. She studied at the Royal Academy Schools, and exhibited from 1923 until 1939 at the Royal Academy; the Society of Women Artists; the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts; the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; the New English...

, Mary Elizabeth Atkins

Mary Elizabeth Atkins

Mary Elizabeth Atkins was an English painter of landscape, interiors and flowers.Atkins studied at the Slade School and exhibited at the Royal Academy and the New English Art Club.-External references:***...

, Philip Wilson Steer

Philip Wilson Steer

Philip Wilson Steer OM was a British painter of landscape and occasional portraits and figure studies. He was a leading figure in the Impressionist movement in Britain.-Life and work:...

, Neville Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton

Neville Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton

Neville Stephen Bulwer-Lytton, 3rd Earl of Lytton, OBE was a British military officer and artist.He was a son of Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton and grandson of the famous novelists, Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Rosina Doyle Wheeler. Neville Lytton was born in India while his father served...

, Muirhead Bone

Muirhead Bone

Sir Muirhead Bone was a Scottish etcher, drypoint and watercolour artist.The son of a printer, Bone was born in Glasgow and trained initially as an architect, later going on to study art at Glasgow School of Art. He began printmaking in 1898, and although his first known print was a lithograph, he...

, Robert Polhill Bevan, Dugald Sutherland MacColl

Dugald Sutherland MacColl

Dugald Sutherland MacColl was a Scottish watercolour painter, art critic, lecturer and writer. He was keeper of the Tate gallery for five years.- Life :...

, Neville Lewis

Neville Lewis

Alfred Neville Lewis was a South African artist. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and educated there and, later, at the Slade School of Art in London....

, Charles Holmes

Charles Holmes

Sir Charles John Holmes, KCVO was a British painter, art critic and museum director. His writing on art combined theory with practice and he was an expert on the painting techniques of the Old Masters, from whose example he had learned to draw and paint.Holmes was the son of a clergyman, Charles...

, Carron O Lodge

Carron O Lodge

Carron Angus Cyril Oliver Lodge was an English figure and landscape painter...

, Geoffrey Tibble

Geoffrey Tibble

Geoffrey Arthur Tibble was an English artist.Tibble studied at the Slade School under Henry Tonks where he was a contemporary of William Coldstream...

, Alexander Mann

Alexander Mann

Alexander Mann was a Scottish landscape and genre painter. He was a member of New English Art Club and Royal Institute of Oil Painters.-Biography:Alexander Mann was born in Glasgow, Scotland on January 22, 1853...

, Hercules Brabazon Brabazon

Hercules Brabazon Brabazon

Hercules Brabazon Brabazon was an English artist, accomplished in Turner manner watercolours....

 and Frank Hughes

Frank Hughes (artist)

Frank Edward Burnham Hughes, N.E.A.C was an English painter and member of the New English Art Club.- Life and work:Frank Hughes was born at St Pancras, London. He studied at St Martin's School of Art in the 1920s and served in the British Army in WW2. In order to support himself he worked in...

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The NEAC is one of the member societies of the Federation of British Artists

Federation of British Artists

The Federation of British Artists consists of nine art societies, and is based at the Mall Galleries in London where the societies Annual Exhibitions are held. The societies represent living artists working in the UK who create contemporary figurative art...

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Honorary life members

• William Bowyer
  William Bowyer (artist)
  William Bowyer RA is a contemporary British portrait and landscape painter, who works in a traditional manner.-Life and work:...
  
  
• Michael Brockway
• Bob Brown
• Fred Dubery
• Bernard Dunstan
  Bernard Dunstan
  Bernard Dunstan RA is a British artist, teacher, and author, best known for his studies of figures in interiors and landscapes. He is currently the longest serving Royal Academician.-Life and work:...
  
  
• Bernard Ecclestone
• Charlotte Halliday
• Margaret Thomas