DAVID INSHAW The Badminton Game 1972 1973

The Brotherhood of Ruralists is a British art group founded in 1975 in Wellow,

Somerset Somerset ( , ; Archaism, archaically Somersetshire , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the so ...

, to paint nature. Their work is figurative with a strong adherence to 'traditional' skills. Painting in oil and watercolour predominate, with mixed media assemblage, printmaking, ink and pencil drawing also being common. It has been described as "a kind of late twentieth-century reinvention of William Morris's arcadian craft guilds."

Origins

The group was founded when Peter Blake and his then wife Jann Haworth moved to Wellow, having obtained permission to convert the disused Wellow railway station into a house. Other founding members were

David Inshaw David Inshaw (born 21 March 1943 in Wednesfield, Staffordshire, England) is a British artist who sprang to public attention in 1973 when his painting '' The Badminton Game'' was exhibited at the ICA ''Summer Studio'' exhibition in London. ...

and two other couples:

Ann Arnold Ann Arnold Telfer, (4 January 1936 – 28 December 2015) was an English fine art and figurative artist and a member of the Brotherhood of Ruralists. Ann Arnold was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and studied at Epsom School of Art (1956–19 ...

and Graham Arnold, and

Annie Ovenden Ann Dinah Ovenden ( Gilmore, born 1945, Amersham, Buckinghamshire) is a British fine artist and a founder member of the Brotherhood of Ruralists. - From Martin, Christopher ''The Ruralists. Art and Design'' (1991) She is a figurative artist. Ov ...

and Graham Ovenden. The name "Brotherhood of Ruralists" was suggested by author

Laurie Lee Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE (26 June 1914 – 13 May 1997) was an English poet, novelist and screenwriter, who was brought up in the small village of Slad in Gloucestershire. His most notable work is the autobiographical trilog ...

, a supporter of the group. Some members were never happy with "brotherhood", since it implied an all-male membership.Andreae, Christopher, "One in a Pack of Ruralist Loners as a Group, the Ruralists Commanded More Attention Than They Would Have Done Separately They Exhibited Extensively", The Christian Science Monitor, October 9, 1992. p.16. According to Peter Blake, it was formed, The group define a "ruralist" as "someone who is from the city who moves to the country".Ian Chilvers, ''A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Art'', Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999, p.97. The Brotherhood came to wide public attention following a BBC TV documentary, ''Summer with the Brotherhood'', which was broadcast in 1977.

Style

Unlike the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, the group did not promote (nor adhere to) a manifesto. Each artist's own techniques and work remains diverse with a common evocation of a mystical response to the observance of nature and rural life. Some of their output is intensely personal and sometimes surrealist in arrangement. Nevertheless, they expressed a common dissatisfaction with

abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or "concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abst ...

and radical avant-gardism in art. Ovenden expressed distaste for the abstract New York School, which he described as "at best decorative and at worst little different from ... neurotic daubings." In turn, supporters of avant-garde art condemned their work as sentimental and nostalgic. Critic Tom Lubbock objected that "they didn't see that their imagination of mystical, deep, England had already been fully colonised by commercial imagery. Their pristine visions of an unfallen world came straight from a pretty advert for soap or air-freshener."Lubbock, Tom, "Escape Artists", The Independent, April 28, 2008, p.14.

Later history

The group's work was very widely disseminated when the

Arden Shakespeare The Arden Shakespeare is a long-running series of scholarly editions of the works of William Shakespeare. It presents fully edited modern-spelling editions of the plays and poems, with lengthy introductions and full commentaries. There have been t ...

commissioned illustrations from its members depicting characters from Shakespeare, to be used on the cover of the Arden editions of each of Shakespeare's plays. After six years the group lost some of its members. By 1984 David Inshaw, Jann Haworth and Peter Blake had left. The remaining four members continued the group, sometimes joined by Blake. They maintain an exhibitions programme both in the West Country and London, and are members of the

Arts Club The Arts Club is a London private members' club founded in 1863 by, among others, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and Lord Leighton in Dover Street, Mayfair. It remains a meeting place for men and women involved in the creative arts eithe ...

. They were guest artists at the

Stuckists Stuckism () is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art.Brotherhood of Ruralists websiteThe David Inshaw website and on-line gallery
From art school to the present day, with an on-line gallery of over 200 paintings, collages, drawings and etchings.
Tabretts
Fine art prints of paintings by David Inshaw and Annie Ovenden. {{Brotherhood of Ruralists British artist groups and collectives British contemporary artists Arts organizations established in 1975 Arts in Somerset