The Grosvenor School of Modern Art was a private British

art school An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on practice and related theory in the visual arts and design. This includes fine art – especially illustration, painting, contemporary art, sculpture, and graphic design. T ...

and, in its shortened form ("Grosvenor School"), the name of a brief British-Australian art movement. It was founded in 1925 by the Scottish

wood engraver Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and prints using relatively lo ...

Iain Macnab Iain Macnab of Barachastlain (21 October 1890 – 24 December 1967) was a Scottish wood-engraver and painter. As a prominent teacher he was influential in the development of the British school of wood-engraving. His pictures are noted for c ...

in his house at 33 Warwick Square in

Pimlico Pimlico () is a district in Central London, in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by Lon ...

, London. From 1925 to 1930

Claude Flight Walter Claude Flight (born London 16 February 1881 - died Donhead St Andrew 10 October 1955) also known as Claude Flight or W. Claude Flight was a British artist who pioneered and popularised the linocut technique in printmaking. He also painte ...

ran it with him, and also taught

linocut Linocut, also known as lino print, lino printing or linoleum art, is a printmaking technique, a variant of relief printing in which a sheet of linoleum (sometimes mounted on a wooden block) is used for a relief printing, relief surface. A design i ...

ting there; among his students were

Sybil Andrews Sybil Andrews (19 April 1898 – 21 December 1992) was an English-Canadian artist who specialised in printmaking and is best known for her modernist linocuts. Life in England Born in 1898 in Bury St Edmunds, Andrews was unable to go straight t ...

Cyril Power Cyril Edward Power (17 December 1872 – 25 May 1951) was an English artist best known for his linocut prints, long-standing artistic partnership with artist Sybil Andrews and for co-founding the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London in 19 ...

Lill Tschudi Lill Tschudi (2 September 1911 – 19 September 2004) was a Swiss artist associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art. Early life and education Lill Tschudi was born at Schwanden, Glarus, Switzerland. As a girl she saw an exhibit of li ...

and William Greengrass.

The school

The school had no formal

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curriculums or curricula ) is the totality of student experiences that occur in an educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experi ...

and students studied what and when they wished. There were day and evening courses:

life class A figure drawing is a drawing of the human form in any of its various shapes and postures, using any of the drawing media. The term can also refer to the act of producing such a drawing. The degree of representation may range from highly detaile ...

es, classes in composition and design, and classes on the history of Modern Art.

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 art critic, c ...

taught a course entitled "From Cézanne to Picasso". Macnab's wife, the dancer Helen Wingrave, gave a dance course. Though there was no formal curriculum, all students attended Claude Flight's

classes. The Grosvenor School closed in 1940, merging with the

Heatherley School of Fine Art The Heatherley School of Fine Art is an independent art school in London. The school was named after Thomas Heatherley who took over as the school's principal from James Mathews Leigh (when it was named "Leigh's"). Founded in 1845, the school ...

Legacy

The school did much to revive interest in

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proces ...

in general, and particularly in the linocut, in the years between the Wars. Artists associated with it have come to be known as the "Grosvenor School", and their work commands high prices. In June–September 2019, the

Dulwich Picture Gallery Dulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, south London. It opened to the public in 1817 and was designed by the Regency architect Sir John Soane. His design was recognized for its innovative and influential method of illumination f ...

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 Ethel Louise Spowers (11 July 1890 – 5 May 1947) was an Australian artist associated with the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London. She was especially known for her linocuts, which are included in the collections of major Australian and ...

Dorrit Black Dorothea Foster Black (23 December 1891 – 13 September 1951) was an Australian painter and printmaker of the modernism, Modernist school, known for being a pioneer of Modernism in Australia. In 1951, at the age of fifty-nine, Black was killed ...

and others.

Alumni

Among those who studied at the school were: *

(1898-1992) * Margaret Barnard *

* Tom Chadwick (1912–1942) *

Suzanne Cooper Suzanne Cooper (1916-1992) was a British Modernist painter and wood-engraver. Her 1936 oil painting "Royal Albion," at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland Art Gallery (NZ), is noted for the "artist's use of simplified blocks of for ...

(1916–1992) *

Pamela Drew Pamela Drew (11 September 1910 – 11 June 1989) was a British artist known for her paintings of marine and aviation subjects. Although Drew was born in the north of England she spent considerable periods of her career in Ireland. Biography Dre ...

(1910–1989) *

Anna Findlay Anna R. Findlay (1885 – 1968) was a British artist and printmaker. She was known for her elegant colour linocut and woodcut prints of mostly outdoor scenes. Early life and education Findlay was born in Glasgow, the daughter of Joseph Findlay ...

(1885–1968) * Ronald Grierson (1901–1993) *

Mary Elizabeth Groom Mary Elizabeth Groom (17 December 1903 – 21 December 1958) was a British artist, notable for her work as a printmaker and for the books she illustrated in the 1930s for the Golden Cockerel Press. Biography Groom was born at Corringham in Ess ...

(1903–1958) * Guy Malet (1900–1973) *

Alison McKenzie Alison McKenzie (30 August 1907 – 5 August 1982) was a British artist who was both a painter and printmaker.Dictionary of Scottish Art and Architecture. Peter J. M. McEwan. Antique Collectors Club. 1994. Biography McKenzie was born in Bombay ...

(1907–1982) *

Gwenda Morgan Gwenda Morgan (1 February 1908 – 9 January 1991) was a British wood engraver. She lived in the town of Petworth in West Sussex. Early life Morgan was born in Petworth, her father having moved there to work at the ironmongers, Austen & Co, ...

(1908–1991), wood engraver. *

Rachel Reckitt Rachel Reckitt (1908–1995) was a British artist, who in a long career worked as a wood engraver, as a sculptor and as a designer of wrought iron work. Her output included book illustrations, tombstones, church sculptures and pub signs. Biogra ...

(1908–1995), wood engraver and sculptor *

Adolfine Mary Ryland Adolfine Mary Ryland (14 March 1903 – 1983) was a British artist who worked as a sculptor, painter and printmaker. Across several different media her work often displayed innovative elements of design and also showed her interest in Indian and ...

(1903–1983) *

(1890–1947) * Helen Stewart (1900-1983) * Eveline Syme (1888–1961) *

Barbara Austin Taylor Barbara Penson Austin Taylor (1891–1951) was a British sculptor. Taylor was born in West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool, and studied in London at the Westminster School of Art, at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art and then at the British School ...

(1891–1951), sculptor *

(1911–2004) * William Greengrass (1898–1972), wood engraver, sculptor, one time curator at the V&A *

Colin Wyatt Colin Wyatt (8 February 1909 – 18 November 1975) was a British ski-racer, ski-jumper and ski mountaineer; artist; lepidopterist; author, photographer and thief. As an entomologist and field collector, with a private collection of more than ...

(1909-1975) Spowers, Black and Syme became instrumental in organising exhibitions and promoting the school in Australia.

References

{{Authority control Educational institutions established in 1925 Art schools in London 1925 establishments in England Linocut