The Independent Group (IG) met at the

Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...

(ICA) in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, from 1952 to 1955. The IG consisted of painters, sculptors, architects, writers and critics who wanted to challenge prevailing

modernist Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

approaches to culture. They introduced mass culture into debates about high culture, re-evaluated modernism and created the "as found" or " found object" aesthetic.Livingstone, M., (1990), ''Pop Art: A Continuing History'', New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. The subject of renewed interest in a post-disciplinary age, the IG was the topic of a two-day, international conference at the

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

in March 2007. The Independent Group is regarded as the precursor to the Pop Art movement in Britain.Arnason, H., ''History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture'', New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1968.

First session (1952)

The Independent Group had its first meeting in April 1952, which consisted of artist and sculptor

Eduardo Paolozzi Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi (, ; 7 March 1924 – 22 April 2005) was a Scottish artist, known for his sculpture and graphic works. He is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of pop art. Early years Eduardo Paolozzi was born on 7 March 1 ...

feeding a mass of colourful images from American magazines through an epidiascope. These images, composed of advertising, comic strips and assorted graphics, were collected when Paolozzi was resident in Paris from 1947-49. Much of the material was assembled as scrapbook

collages Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an Assemblage (art), assemblage of different forms, thus creat ...

and formed the basis of his BUNK! series of screenprints (1972) and the ''Krazy Kat Archives'' now held at the V & A Museum, London. In fact, Paolozzi's seminal 1947 collage '' I was a Rich Man's Plaything'' was the first such "found object" material to contain the word ″pop″ and is considered the initial standard bearer of “Pop Art”.Tate Collection image: ''I was a Rich Man's Plaything''
/ref> The rest of the first Independent Group session concentrated on philosophy and technology during September 1952 to June 1953, and was chaired by design critic and historian,

Reyner Banham Peter Reyner Banham Hon. FRIBA (2 March 1922 – 19 March 1988) was an English architectural critic and writer best known for his theoretical treatise ''Theory and Design in the First Machine Age'' (1960) and for his 1971 book ''Los Angeles: Th ...

. Key members at this stage included Paolozzi, the artist Richard Hamilton, surrealist and magazine art director Toni del Renzio, sculptor William Turnbull, the photographer

Nigel Henderson Admiral Sir Nigel Stuart Henderson, (1 August 1909 – 2 August 1993) was a Royal Navy officer who served as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1968 to 1971. Naval career Henderson joined the Royal Navy in 1927.

and fine artist John McHale, along with the art critic

Lawrence Alloway Lawrence Reginald Alloway (17 September 1926 – 2 January 1990) was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from 1961. In the 1950s, he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an i ...

Second session (1954)

The Group did not meet during late 1953 or early 1954, as they were concentrating on delivering a public programme of lectures at the ICA, ''Aesthetic Problems of Contemporary Art''. New members joined the Independent Group for its second full session, including the architects

Alison and Peter Smithson Alison Margaret Smithson (22 June 1928 – 14 August 1993) and Peter Denham Smithson (18 September 1923 – 3 March 2003) were English architects who together formed an architectural partnership, and are often associated with the New Brutalism ...

. The Smithsons along with Paolozzi, Henderson, Ronald Jenkins, Toni del Renzio, Banham and others staged the highly significant exhibition, ''Parallel of Life and Art'' at the ICA in the Autumn of 1953. Reyner Banham stood down as chair of the ''Independent Group'', as he was busy with his PhD thesis at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and in late 1954 Dorothy Morland asked the art critic Lawrence Alloway and fine artist John McHale to reconvene the Independent Group for its second session. The painter Magda Cordell and her husband, music producer

Frank Cordell Frank Cordell (1 June 1918 – 6 July 1980) was a British composer, arranger and conductor, who was active with the Institute of Contemporary Arts. He also composed music under the name Frank Meilleur or Meillear (Meillear being his mother's ma ...

joined the Independent Group at this point. The second session focused on American mass culture such as Western movies,

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

billboards A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

, car design and popular music. In the course of such discussions, they drew upon

Futurist Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities abou ...

Surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

, the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

, and

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

concepts. John McHale and Lawrence Alloway curated a ''Collages and Objects'' exhibition at the ICA in 1954, where McHale exhibited his formative Pop Art collages. Richard Hamilton organised an exhibition, ''Man, Machine and Motion'' in late 1955 at the

Hatton Gallery The Hatton Gallery is Newcastle University's art gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It is based in the University's Fine Art Building. The Hatton Gallery briefly closed in February 2016 for a £3.8 million redevelopment and reopened i ...

, Newcastle and the ICA, which focussed on some ''Independent Group'' concerns.

''This Is Tomorrow'' (1956)

In 1956 the group came to wider public attention with its participation in the exhibition This Is Tomorrow. The IG ceased to meet formally by 1955, but the IG members continued to meet informally right up to 1962/63, and the connections between the various members continued to bear fruit in the subsequent years of their creative practice.

References

Bibliography

* Anne Massey, ''The Independent Group: Modernism and Mass Culture in Britain, 1945–59'',

Manchester University Press Manchester University Press is the university press of the University of Manchester, England and a publisher of academic books and journals. Manchester University Press has developed into an international publisher. It maintains its links with th ...

, 1995. * David Robbins (Ed) ''The Independent Group: Postwar Britain and The Aesthetics of Plenty'',

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

, 1990.

External links

The Independent Group website
{{Authority control 1952 establishments in England 1955 disestablishments in England Organizations established in 1952 Organizations disestablished in 1955 Pop art English artist groups and collectives