The Seven and Five Society was an

art group An art group or artist group, sometimes also an artist collective, describes itself as an open or fixed association of artists to a group with a name. Founders and initiators of artist groups are mostly well-known artists, around whom similarly thin ...

of seven painters and five sculptors created in 1919 and based in London. The group was originally intended to encompass traditional, conservative artistic sensibilities. The first exhibition catalogue said, " efeel that there has of late been too much pioneering along too many lines in altogether too much of a hurry." Artist

Ben Nicholson Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, Order of Merit, OM (10 April 1894 – 6 February 1982) was an English painter of abstract art, abstract compositions (sometimes in low relief), landscape and still-life. Background and training Nicholson was ...

joined in 1924, followed

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...

and

Barbara Hepworth Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leadi ...

, and changed the society into a

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 ...

ic one and expelled the non-modernist artists. In 1935, the group was renamed the Seven and Five Abstract Group. At the Zwemmer Gallery in

Charing Cross Road Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus (the intersection with Oxford Street) and then becomes Tottenham Court Road. It leads from the north in the direction of ...

, London, they staged the first exhibition of entirely abstract works in Britain."Seven and Five Society"
tate.org.uk. Retrieved 24 February 2021.

Name

The first intention of the group was to include seven painters and five sculptors (‘VII and V’). This became ‘Seven & Five’ and, after a suggestion by Nicholson, simply '7 & 5'.

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Exhibitions

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Further reading