The Leeds Arts Club was founded in 1903 by the

Leeds Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by popula ...

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

teacher

Alfred Orage Alfred Richard Orage (22 January 1873 – 6 November 1934) was a British people, British influential figure in socialist politics and modernist culture, now best known for editing the magazine ''The New Age'' before the First World War. While he ...

and Holbrook Jackson, a

lace Lace is a delicate fabric made of yarn or thread in an open weblike pattern, made by machine or by hand. Generally, lace is divided into two main categories, needlelace and bobbin lace, although there are other types of lace, such as knitted o ...

merchant and freelance

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

, and was one of the most advanced centres for

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

thinking, radical thought and experimental art in Britain in the pre-

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

period.

History

1903–1906

Orage and his friends had made a number of attempts to found a forward thinking arts organisation in the city of Leeds, then an important manufacturing city. The Leeds Arts Club, set up in 1903, was an organisation that mixed radical

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

and anarchist politics with the philosophy of

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...

, Suffragette

Feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

, the spiritualism of the

Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, is a worldwide body with the aim to advance the ideas of Theosophy in continuation of previous Theosophists, especially the Greek and Alexandrian Neo-Platonic philosophers dating back to 3rd century CE ...

and modernist art and poetry. It had close associations with the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

, the

co-operative movement The history of the cooperative movement concerns the origins and history of cooperatives across the world. Although cooperative arrangements, such as mutual insurance, and principles of cooperation existed long before, the cooperative movement bega ...

and the early

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. T ...

. At its weekly meetings, members discussed the connections between art, spiritualism, philosophy and politics. The guiding ethos was a kind of

existential Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

experimenting dictated by aesthetic concerns where nothing was banned from a moral perspective. The Club met in rooms on the first floor of

Leeds Permanent Building Society The Leeds Permanent Building Society was a building society founded in Leeds, England in 1848 and was commonly known in a shortened form as The Leeds or The Perm. It should not be confused with the extant Leeds Building Society (formerly Leeds ...

on the corner of Park Lane, now Headrow, and Calverley Street. Members included a large number of teachers, many of them women, journalists, architects, artists, photographers, typesetters, printers, clergymen and a few university lecturers. Orage actively encouraged women members, such as the suffragette and radical editor

Mary Gawthorpe Mary Eleanor Gawthorpe (12 January 1881 – 12 March 1973) was an English suffragette, socialist, trade unionist and editor. She was described by Rebecca West as "a merry militant saint". Life Gawthorpe was born in Woodhouse, Leeds to John Ga ...

, to participate in debates. Gawthorpe describes in her autobiography speakers such as Beatrice Farr, and how the debates led her to appreciate women's experience, such as her friend

Ethel Snowden Ethel Snowden, Viscountess Snowden (born Ethel Annakin; 8 September 1881 – 22 February 1951), was a British socialist, human rights activist, and feminist politician. From a middle-class background, she became a Christian Socialist thro ...

, as well as pointing out the role of Alfred's wife Jean Orage, a

textile artist Textile arts are arts and crafts that use plant, animal, or synthetic fibers to construct practical or decorative objects. Textiles have been a fundamental part of human life since the beginning of civilization. The methods and materials u ...

, in challenging Orage to develop his theories and ideas. The pioneer socialist and feminist campaigner, novelist and journalist, Isabella Ford was one of the first supporters of the Club, served as an early committee member and lectured there on 'Women and the State' in 1905, returning to give a lecture in 1907 on 'Women's place in future progress' in the midst of her local and national work on

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

. Members like Tom Heron, father of

Patrick Heron Patrick Heron (30 January 1920 – 20 March 1999) was a British abstract and figurative artist, critic, writer, and polemicist, who lived in Zennor, Cornwall. Heron was recognised as one of the leading painters of his generation. Influenced b ...

, set up enlightened

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

businesses, he later set up Cresta Silks following Guild Socialism ideas. The painter

William Rothenstein Sir William Rothenstein (29 January 1872 – 14 February 1945) was an English painter, printmaker, draughtsman, lecturer, and writer on art. Emerging during the early 1890s, Rothenstein continued to make art right up until his death. Though he c ...

and his brother Charles championed French Impressionist painting, lending examples to exhibitions held at the Club.

1906–1911

In 1906 Orage and Jackson left Leeds and moved to London to edit the hugely influential cultural and political journal ''

The New Age ''The New Age'' was a British weekly magazine (1894–1938), inspired by Fabian socialism, and credited as a major influence on literature and the arts during its heyday from 1907 to 1922, when it was edited by Alfred Richard Orage. It publishe ...

''. Albert Wheatley Waddington, an architect and former secretary of

Edward Carpenter Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929) was an English utopian socialist, poet, philosopher, anthologist, an early activist for gay rightsWarren Allen Smith: ''Who's Who in Hell, A Handbook and International Directory for Human ...

's Sheffield Socialist Society, and Annie Kennedy, a schoolteacher and Jean Orage's cousin, acted as secretary and assistant secretary, developing links with the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. The Club continued to host speakers, as well as arranging summer excursions, a life-drawing group, a musical committee, a book group and lending library. In February 1908, the Club moved to 8 Blenheim Terrace, Woodhouse Lane, a 3 storey house near to the University, despite the fact that members were still largely non-university women and men. In April 1908, the actress and social activist

Millicent Murby Millicent Beatrice Murby (1873 – 14 January 1951) was a British socialist activist. Murby worked as a postal clerk. She joined the Fabian Society in 1901, becoming secretary of the Clapham and District Fabian Society in 1907, and serving on ...

lectured on

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...

and in December 1908, the actress

Florence Farr Florence Beatrice Emery (''née'' Farr; 7 July 1860 – 29 April 1917) was a British West End leading actress, composer and director. She was also a women's rights activist, journalist, educator, singer, novelist, and leader of the occult ...

lectured on 'The Theatre and the Arts', reflecting the debates around the role of theatre in cultural renewal that dominated the Club in these years.

lectured on 'The Possibilities of the Fine Arts in February 1908 advocating the need to develop civic collections in relation to provincial schools of art. Many musical performances took place from 1908 on, including by Misses Beecroft and Appleyard, Miss Lily Simms and a talk on 'Musical Healthy Mindedness' by Kate Whitehead, editor of ''Musical World''. Between 1909 and 1911, national figures like G. K. Chesterton,

Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

and

lectured at the Club where theatre, religion, politics and

ecological Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

issues dominated, photographs by Frank Sutcliffe and Frederick Evans were exhibited. In 1911, the pioneering Elizabeth Bessle Comedy Company gave three performances.

1911–1923

In 1911 and 1912, the appointments of Michael Sadler as the new Vice-Chancellor of the

and

Frank Rutter Francis Vane Phipson Rutter (17 February 1876 – 18 April 1937)"Rutter, Frank V. P.", ''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2007; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007. Retrieved froukwhoswho8 August 2008. was a British art critic, curat ...

as director of the

Leeds Art Gallery Leeds Art Gallery in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, is a gallery, part of the Leeds Museums & Galleries group, whose collection of 20th-century British Art was designated by the British government in 1997 as a collection "of national importance ...

changed the nature of the Club. Under their leadership the Arts Club maintained its interest in the relationship between radical politics, spiritualism and art, but this was expanded to encompass early

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

and, most significantly Post-Impressionist and abstract art. Sadler owned one of the largest collections of Post-Impressionist art in Britain, displayed in his house in

Headingley Headingley is a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, approximately two miles out of the city centre, to the north west along the A660 road. Headingley is the location of the Beckett Park campus of Leeds Beckett University and Headingley ...

, and had connections to

Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

and the

Blaue Reiter ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider) is a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name, first published in mid-May ...

Group. Sadler's son had bought Kandinksy's woodcuts at an exhibition in 1911 organised by Rutter. Using his personal links with

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, Sadler built up a remarkable collection of

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

and

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

art at a time when such art was either unknown or dismissed in London, even by well-known promoters of modernism such as

Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developme ...

. Most notable in his collection was Kandinsky's abstract painting ''Fragment for Composition VII'', of 1912, which was in Leeds and on display at the Leeds Arts Club in 1913. He also owned

Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

's celebrated work "The Vision After the Sermon". According to

, Kandinsky even visited the Arts Club in Leeds before the First World War. Sir Michael Ernest Sadler photo by George Charles Beresford 1914

Rutter initially had plans to create a modern art collection at the Leeds City Art Gallery, but had been frustrated in this aim by "boorish" local councillors. He co-founded the Leeds Art Collections Fund with Sadler, to help acquisitions and shows, among them, the seminal show in June

1913 Events January * January 5 – First Balkan War: Battle of Lemnos – Greek admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis forces the Turkish fleet to retreat to its base within the Dardanelles, from which it will not venture for the rest of the ...

Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction a ...

held at the Arts Club, with works by Cézanne,

Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

, Serusier,

, Picasso,

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

Pissarro Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). H ...

, Anne Estelle Rice, Ethel Wright and others, lent by Sadler, Rutter and A. M. Daniel, the Lord Mayor of

Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to: People * Scarborough (surname) * Earl of Scarbrough Places Australia * Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth * Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong * Scarborough, Queensland, su ...

. The discussions there about contemporary art, and the presence of Rutter, had a significant influence on the thinking of Herbert Read (1893–1968), who turned 20 in December 1913.

Legacy

The influence of art the Arts Club extended into later institutions in London. When Alfred Orage and Holbrook Jackson left Leeds in 1906 they moved to London and began editing the weekly cultural and political journal ''The New Age''. As Tom Steele has argued, this was a self-conscious attempt to expand the reach of the philosophy developed at the Leeds Arts Club to a national audience. Under Orage and Jackson ''The New Age'' became, in Steele's words, 'the most influential journal of literature and politics in the country, with regular articles from established writers like G.K. Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw, Hilaire Belloc and Arnold Bennett, reviewing from Ezra Pound and Herbert Read, art criticism and theory from T.E. Hulme and illustrations from Wyndham Lewis, Jacob Epstein and others. It was the cradle of the modern avant-garde in Britain.' A number of these writers had given lectures at the Leeds Arts Club previously – or, like Read, were members – and Steele's argument is that the lively cultural debates that took place at the Leeds Arts Club under Orage and Jackson were effectively continued in the pages of ''The New Age.''Tom Steele, 'From Gentleman to Superman: Alfred Orage and Aristocratic Socialism' in Christopher Shaw and Malcolm Chase (eds.), ''The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia'' (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989) p.112 The Leeds Arts Club also became the model for Alfred Orage to establish a new arts club in 1906, this time in London, under the name of the Fabian Arts Group. As well as emulating the cultural, philosophical and political predilections of the Leeds Arts Club, the Fabian Arts Group was an attempt by Orage and others to influence the political outlook of the early Labour Party through one of its founding organisations, the

. A third legacy of the Leeds Arts Club occurred in London in 1947, after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, when former Leeds Arts Club member, Herbert Read co-founded 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 ...

, or ICA, again directly emulating the model, combining avant-garde culture, philosophical discussion and political mission, established by Orage and Jackson when they established the Leeds Arts Club. The Leeds Arts Club was also the starting point for the community theatre project that eventually grew to become the West Yorkshire Playhouse. This began in 1907 as an offshoot of the Leeds Arts Club, called the Leeds Playgoers' Society, and organised both performances of modern plays by writers such as Ibsen, Shaw and Chekov, and lectures on drama, which continued to be held in collaboration with the Leeds Arts Club. This later evolved into the Leeds Playhouse, the forerunner to the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Leeds Civic Trust Leeds Civic Trust is a voluntary organisation and registered charity established in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England in 1965. Affiliated to the national charity Civic Voice, its stated purpose is "to stimulate public interest in and care for the ...

commemorated the Leeds Arts Club by a blue plaque on number 8 Blenheim Terrace where it met from 1908 to 1923, opposite the

. The plaque was unveiled on 15 May 2012, by Ingrid Roscoe, Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire, and a speech was made by Tom Steele, author of ''Alfred Orage and The Leeds Arts Club''. The plaque had been suggested by Ben Read, art historian and son of Herbert Read. The inscription is:

THE LEEDS ART CLUB A highly influential forum for the avant-garde in politics, philosophy, art and literature met here from 1908. Ground-breaking exhibitions included the 1913 Post-Impressionist show and Cubist and Futurist Art in 1914. Famous speakers included G.B. Shaw and W.B. Yeats. 1903–1923

Key themes were the interest in

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his car ...

Guild Socialism Guild socialism is a political movement advocating workers' control of industry through the medium of trade-related guilds "in an implied contractual relationship with the public". It originated in the United Kingdom and was at its most influent ...

, impressionist and post-impressionist painting and Kandinksy's aesthetic theory. Artists, thinkers and writers inspired by the Club include Isabella Ford,

Jacob Kramer Jacob Kramer (26 December 1892 – 4 February 1962)''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' was a Russian Empire-born painter who spent all of his working life in England. Early life Jacob Kramer was born in the small town of Klintsy, then ...

and Herbert Read. Political, literary and cultural figures, both men and women, lectured at the Club. The Club also staged exhibitions and theatrical performances. It has been argued by the art historian

Michael Paraskos Michael Paraskos, FHEA, FRSA (born 1969) is a novelist, lecturer and writer on art. He has written several non-fiction and fiction books and essays, and articles on art, literature, culture and politics for various publications, including ''Art ...

that the Leeds Arts Club was the closest England came to a genuine expressionist art movement. This is evidenced partly by the Arts Club's, artistic, philosophical and political interests, which mirror those seen in German expressionist art groups of the time, and through its direct links to Kandinsky in Germany. It also produced its own expressionist artists, including

and Bruce Turner. It also was the seed ground from which the anarchist poet, art critic and art theorist Herbert Read emerged, and Read's basic dialectical theory of art, which became one of the main methods to understand modernism between the 1930s and 1960s, has its roots in the understanding of art expounded at the Leeds Arts Club.David Thistlewood, 'Herbert Read: Formlessness and Form'' (London: Routledge, 1990) p. 30''

Notes and references

{{Authority control Arts in Leeds British artist groups and collectives Modernism Arts organisations based in the United Kingdom