Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Small tear on dustcovercorner. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> This is the first monograph to analyse the complex story of Camden Town painting and painters from 1905 to 1914. The climax of this story is the creation in 1911 of the short-lived Camden Town Group whose members were Bayes Bevan Drummond Gilman Gore Ginner Grant Innes John Lightfoot Lamb Manson Pissarro Lewis Ratcliffe Sickert and the amateur Doman Turner. However the brief history of the Camden Town Group itself is here set firmly within its context as an outcome of the earlier association of artists (the Fitzroy Street Group) founded by Sickert in 1907 and as the progenitor of the much larger London Group founded in 1913-14 and active to this day. The text explores in depth two parallel interrelated themes: the artistic influences and relationships between members of these groups during the period 1905-14; and the politics of art in London before the First World War which necessitated the formation of anti-establishment societies. Primary documentary material is used to chart the exact history of the creation of the Fitzroy Street Camden Town and London Groups. The character and impetus behind other contemporary societies of artists such as the Allied Artists’ Association and the various enterprises led by Roger Fry and his circle are also examined. The vital movement in British art inspired above all by Sickert and loosely labelled Camden Town painting is defined and its disintegration in the face of Post-Impressionist influences from France is likewise detailed. The first group of plates illustrates the interrelating influences the characteristic themes and the handling of Camden Town painting from 1905 to 1911. A central section provides a pictorial record of pictures actually exhibited by each member at the three Camden Town Group exhibitions of June and December 1911 and December 1912. The last group of plates illustrates the stylistic development of individual members’ work in 1913-14. Each plate is fully catalogued and the opportunity is taken in the accompanying notes to discuss individual paintings in depth. Contemporary press reviews are liberally quoted to establish the identity of particular pictures included in the important early exhibitions. This catalogue section also lists all the pictures exhibited in the three Camden Town Group exhibitions and with the help of documentary sources attempts to identify as many of these works as possible even when they have not been selected for illustration. (MP)