Artists of the East London Group by Buckman David

The remarkable story of how a group of untrained London artists became an art world sensation in the interwar years.

Although the East London Group achieved commercial success and huge media coverage in the late 1920s and early 1930s, their story is relatively unknown today. Their atmospheric paintings depicting scenes from everyday life, their London surroundings and scenes from further afield are now highly sought after. Inspired by the charismatic teacher John Cooper, its artists, mainly working-class people with little art world experience, achieved shows at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, Tate Gallery, and around the UK. Then, amazingly, two of them reached the dizzying heights of the Venice Biennale in 1936. Their fans included such luminaries as Arnold Bennett, Joseph Duveen, Aldous Huxley, Ramsay MacDonald, Walter Sickert and Osbert Sitwell.

This fascinating book is based on correspondence and interviews with the last, now-deceased Group members plus primary and secondary archival research over many years. It includes extensive artist biographies plus chapters covering the group’s members’ involvement in film, the stage and poster work, alongside stories of their mentor John Cooper’s mosaic revival and his wife Phyllis Bray’s huge murals for the New People’s Palace in Mile End Road, London.

From Bow to Biennale is the first study of this important group of artists, first published in 2012 but now expanded and updated with a new afterword on East London Group paintings that have recently come to light. Richly illustrated, the group’s story is examined in captivating detail, with biographies of all the artists and a list showing where you can see their paintings today.

The remarkable story of how a group of untrained London artists became an art world sensation in the 1920s and 30s.

About the Author: David Buckman has been a journalist and author for over 50 years, writing for numerous magazines and newspapers, and has also made several hundred radio and television broadcasts. After the first edition of his dictionary Artists in Britain Since 1945 appeared in 1998 he has concentrated on arts writing. He contributed to Macmillan’s Dictionary of Art and Brian McFarlane’s Encyclopedia of British Film. Monograph subjects include J B Manson, Leonid Pasternak, Martin Leman and Glyn and Katherine Walne; Charles Debenham’s East Anglia; and he completed a biography of the sculptor A H Gerrard. There have also been many obituaries for the Independent and the Guardian. He is an advisor to the Public Catalogue Foundation.

13 Feb 2025
 

Artists of the East London Group: From Bow to Biennale by Buckman David ISBN 9781849949279