London Group

The London Group was an exhibiting association of artists founded in London in 1913 to organise exhibitions of modern art in Britain. It arose from the merger of several earlier associations, notably the Camden Town Group and other avant-garde circles, and aimed to provide an independent exhibiting platform for artists whose work was not accepted by the conservative Royal Academy. The group's first president was Harold Gilman. Its membership at various stages included leading figures of British modernism, among them Walter Sickert, Spencer Gore, Jacob Epstein, Wyndham Lewis, David Bomberg, Mark Gertler and many others, representing a wide spectrum of tendencies from Post-Impressionism to Vorticism. The London Group deliberately declined to confine itself to any single style or manifesto, seeking instead to be an open and pluralist community bringing together the various currents of new art. Its annual exhibitions became an important venue for presenting avant-garde tendencies to the British public over many decades. The group still exists today, remaining one of the oldest active artists' associations in Britain.