Claude Maurice Rogers (27 January 1907 – 18 February 1979) was a British painter of portraits and landscapes, an influential art teacher, a founding member of the

Euston Road School The Euston Road School is a term applied to a group of English painters, active either as staff or students at the School of Drawing and Painting in London between 1937 and 1939. The School opened in October 1937 at premises in Fitzroy Street bef ...

and at one time the President of the

London Group The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was form ...

of British artists.

Life and work

Rogers was born in London but spent his childhood in Buenos Aires. He attended the

Slade School of Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

between 1925 and 1929, where he won a scholarship to study in Paris throughout 1930. He returned to Britain in 1931 and lived in the Norwegian Seamen's Mission building in Gravesend. He joined the London Artists' Association in 1931 and had his first exhibition with them in 1933. Rogers obtained a teaching appointment in 1935 at Raynes Park in London. In 1937 he married Elsie Few, a fellow artist. Rogers was one of the original members of the, short-lived but highly influential,

in 1937. He taught at their original premises in Fitzroy Street and, from February 1938, at the Euston Road location that gave the group its name. Also, in 1938 he became a member of the

and held a solo show at the

Leicester Galleries Leicester Galleries was an art gallery located in London from 1902 to 1977 that held exhibitions of modern British, French and international artists' works. Its name was acquired in 1984 by Peter Nahum, who operates "Peter Nahum at the Leiceste ...

in 1940. Membership of the

New English Art Club The New English Art Club (NEAC) was founded in London in 1885 as an alternative venue to the Royal Academy. It continues to hold an annual exhibition of paintings and drawings at the Mall Galleries in London, exhibiting works by both members and a ...

followed in 1943. During the Second World War Rogers served in the Royal Engineers until he was injured in 1943. He continued to paint and received a commission from the

War Artists' Advisory Committee The War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC), was a British government agency established within the Ministry of Information at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and headed by Sir Kenneth Clark. Its aim was to compile a comprehensive artist ...

in May 1942 for a picture. He also painted Janet Vaughan in her role as principal of Somerville College, Oxford. After the war Rogers, and other former members of the Euston Road school, taught at the

Camberwell School of Art Camberwell College of Arts is a public tertiary art school in Camberwell, in London, England. It is one of the six constituent colleges of the University of the Arts London. It offers further and higher education programmes, including postgrad ...

. Two exhibitions resulted, ''The Euston Road School and others'' in May 1948 and a group retrospective which the Arts Council toured in 1948 and 1949. Rodgers worked at Camberwell until 1950 and then taught at the Slade until 1963, when he became the Professor of Fine Art at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

, a post he held until 1972. Rogers had been the President of the London Group between 1952 and 1955. From 1956 onwards Rogers and his wife owned a property at

Somerton Somerton may refer to: Places Australia * Somerton, New South Wales * Somerton Park, South Australia, a seaside Adelaide suburb ** Somerton Man, unsolved case of an unidentified man found dead in 1948 on the Somerton Park beach * Somerton, Victoria ...

in Suffolk and they both painted landscapes in the area. In 1959 Rogers was appointed OBE. Works by Claude Rogers are held in the collections of the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, the National Portrait Gallery, the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

, the

Arts Council Collection The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...

and in the UK Government art collection. A major retrospective of Roger's work was held at the

Whitechapel Art Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the ...

in 1973 and another at the

Ben Uri Gallery The Ben Uri Gallery & Museum is a registered museum and charity based at 108a Boundary Road, off Abbey Road in St John's Wood, London, England. It features the work and lives of émigré artists in London, and describes itself as "The Art Museum ...

during 1992 and 1993. A joint Rogers and Few exhibition was held in 2002 at the Belgrave Gallery.

References

External links

*
Works by Rogers in the Tate collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rogers, Claude 1907 births 1979 deaths 20th-century English male artists 20th-century English painters Academics of Camberwell College of Arts Academics of the University of Reading Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Artists from London British Army personnel of World War II English male painters World War II artists