The Grosvenor School of Modern Art was a private British art school and, in its shortened form ("Grosvenor School"), the name of a brief British-Australian art movement. It was founded in 1925 by the Scottish wood engraver Iain Macnab in his house at 33 Warwick Square in

Pimlico Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by London V ...

, London. From 1925 to 1930

Claude Flight Walter Claude Flight (born London 16 February 1881 - died Donhead St Andrew 10 October 1955) also known as Claude Flight or W. Claude Flight was a British artist who pioneered and popularised the linoleum cut technique. He also painted, illustrated ...

ran it with him, and also taught linocutting there; among his students were

Sybil Andrews Sybil Andrews (19 April 1898 – 21 December 1992) was an English-Canadian artist who specialised in printmaking and is best known for her modernist linocuts. Life in England Born in 1898 in Bury St Edmunds, Andrews was unable to go straigh ...

, Cyril Power,

Lill Tschudi Lill Tschudi (2 September 1911 – 19 September 2004) was a Swiss artist associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art. Early life and education Lill Tschudi was born at Schwanden, Glarus, Switzerland. As a girl she saw an exhibit of li ...

and William Greengrass.

The school

The school had no formal curriculum and students studied what and when they wished. There were day and evening courses: life classes, classes in composition and design, and classes on the history of Modern Art. Frank Rutter taught a course entitled "From Cézanne to Picasso". Macnab's wife, the dancer Helen Wingrave, gave a dance course. Though there was no formal curriculum, all students attended Claude Flight's linocut classes. The Grosvenor School closed in 1940, merging with the Heatherley School of Fine Art.

Legacy

The school did much to revive interest in

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

in general, and particularly in the linocut, in the years between the Wars. Artists associated with it have come to be known as the "Grosvenor School", and their work commands high prices. In June–September 2019, the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London hosted the first major exhibition presenting solely the output of the Grosvenor School alumni in a public museum; it was also the first major exhibition outside Australia to have considerable examples of the works by the Australian alumni

Ethel Spowers Ethel Louise Spowers (11 July 1890 – 5 May 1947) was an Australian artist associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London. She was especially known for her linocuts, which are included in the collections of major Australian and ...

Dorrit Black Dorothea Foster Black (23 December 1891 – 13 September 1951) was an Australian painter and printmaker of the modernism, Modernist school, known for being a pioneer of Modernism in Australia. In 1951, at the age of sixty, Black was killed in a ...

and others.

Alumni

Among those who studied at the school were: *

(1898-1992) *

Margaret Barnard Margaret Helen Barnard (1898–1992) was a painter and linocut maker. Barnard was born in Bengal, where her father was serving with the Indian Police Force. At the age of seven she returned to Britain for her education, and went to Bath High Sc ...

* Tom Chadwick (1912–1942) * Suzanne Cooper (1916–1992) * Pamela Drew (1910–1989) * Anna Findlay (1885–1968) * Ronald Grierson (1901–1993) * Mary Elizabeth Groom (1903–1958) * Guy Malet (1900–1973) * Alison McKenzie (1907–1982) *

Gwenda Morgan Gwenda Morgan (1 February 1908 – 1991) was a British wood engraver. She lived in the town of Petworth in West Sussex. Early life Morgan was born in Petworth, her father having moved there to work at the ironmongers, Austen & Co, of which he l ...

(1908–1991), wood engraver. * Cyril Power *

Rachel Reckitt Rachel Reckitt (1908–1995) was a British artist, who in a long career worked as a wood engraver, as a sculptor and as a designer of wrought iron work. Her output included book illustrations, tombstones, church sculptures and pub signs. Biogra ...

(1908–1995), wood engraver and sculptor * Adolfine Mary Ryland (1903–1983) *

(1890–1947) *

Eveline Syme Eveline Syme (26 October 1888 – 6 June 1961) was an Australian artist associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, and an advocate for women's post-secondary education. Early life Eveline Winifred Syme was born in Thames Ditton, Surrey, ...

(1888–1961) *

Barbara Austin Taylor Barbara Penson Austin Taylor (1891–1951) was a British sculptor. Biography Taylor was born in West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool, and studied in London at the Westminster School of Art, at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art and then at the Bri ...

(1891–1951), sculptor *

(1911–2004) * William Greengrass (1898–1972), wood engraver, sculptor, one time curator at the V&A Spowers, Black and Syme became instrumental in organising exhibitions and promoting the school in Australia.

References

{{Authority control Educational institutions established in 1925 Art schools in London 1925 establishments in England