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Grosvenor School of Modern Art

Grosvenor School of Modern Art

33 Warwick Square, the former home of the Grosvenor School of Modern Art (scaffolded, centre)
Active	1925 (1925)–1940 (1940)[1]
Founder	Iain Macnab
Location	London , United Kingdom 51°29′23″N 0°08′30″W / 51.4896°N 0.1418°W / 51.4896; -0.1418
Campus	33 Warwick Square, Pimlico

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.^[2] It was founded in 1925 by the Scottish wood engraver Iain Macnab in his house at 33 Warwick Square in Pimlico, London.^[1][3]: 31 From 1925 to 1930 Claude Flight ran it with him, and also taught linocutting there; among his students were Sybil Andrews, Cyril Power, Lill Tschudi and William Greengrass.^[4]: 400

The school[edit]

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".^[3]: 31 Macnab's wife, the dancer Helen Wingrave, gave a dance course.^[5]: 9 Though there was no formal curriculum, all students attended Claude Flight's linocut classes.^[6]

The Grosvenor School closed in 1940, merging with the Heatherley School of Fine Art.^[7]

Legacy[edit]

The school did much to revive interest in printmaking in general, and particularly in the linocut, in the years between the Wars.^[8] Artists associated with it have come to be known as the "Grosvenor School", and their work commands high prices.^[9]

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, Dorrit Black and others.^[10]

Alumni[edit]

Among those who studied at the school were:

• Sybil Andrews (1898-1992)
• Margaret Barnard
• Dorrit Black
• Tom Chadwick (1912–1942)^[8]
• 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 (1908–1991), wood engraver.
• Cyril Power
• Rachel Reckitt (1908–1995), wood engraver and sculptor
• Adolfine Mary Ryland (1903–1983)
• Ethel Spowers (1890–1947)
• Eveline Syme (1888–1961)
• Barbara Austin Taylor (1891–1951), sculptor
• Lill Tschudi (1911–2004)
• William Greengrass (1898–1972), wood engraver, sculptor, one time curator at the V&A
• Colin Wyatt (1909-1975)^[11]

Spowers, Black and Syme became instrumental in organising exhibitions and promoting the school in Australia.^{[citation needed]}

References[edit]