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 engraverIain 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
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 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]
^Gordon, Samuel; Leaper, Hana; Lock, Tracey; Vann, Philip; Scott, Jennifer (13 August 2019). Gordon, Samuel (ed.). Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking (Exhibition Catalogue) (1st ed.). Philip Wilson Publishers. p. 22. ISBN978-1-78130-078-7.
^Gordon, Samuel; Leaper, Hana; Lock, Tracey; Vann, Philip; Scott, Jennifer (13 August 2019). Gordon, Samuel (ed.). Cutting Edge: Modernist British Printmaking (Exhibition Catalogue) (1st ed.). Philip Wilson Publishers. pp. Inside front flap and 24. ISBN978-1-78130-078-7.
^Lay-Figure (April 1936). "Round the Studios". The Artist. XI (2): 41.