Grosvenor School of Modern Art
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]
Among those who studied at the school were:
Spowers, Black and Syme became instrumental in organising exhibitions and promoting the school in Australia.