Minutes of the Second London Group Meeting

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Minutes of the Second London Group Meeting 15 November 1913

Typescript, by James Bolivar Manson (1879-1945)

Tate Archive TGA 806/10/6

Those attending a meeting on 25 October in which the formation of a ‘new society’, soon to be called the London Group was first discussed, were all members of either the Fitzroy Street or Camden Town groups (TGA 806/10/6). Members of these groups automatically became members of the London Group, without needing election. Consequently, this led to a number of artists joining the Fitzroy Street Group over the coming weeks in order to avoid the difficulty of being elected to the London Group at a later date, as these minutes of the second meeting show.

New members include William Bernard Adeney and Harold Squire, who had exhibited with the Bloomsbury Friday Club, while the majority were affiliates of Wyndham Lewis, including Frederick Etchells, Cuthbert Hamilton, C.R.W. Nevinson and Edward Wadsworth. The artist couple Renée Finch and Harald Sund are also listed, but they may have become members earlier in the year. Absent members of the Camden Town Group include Duncan Grant, Lucien Pissarro and John Doman Turner, while Augustus John had already refused membership and James Dickson Innes was in Morocco (TGA 806/1/445).

The minutes state that it was at this meeting that it was ‘Resolved that the Society be called “THE LONDON GROUP”’. In Charles Ginner’s reminiscences, he wrote that

a large meeting eventually took place at No. 19, Fitzroy Street. Here, unless my memory has played truant, I have a vision of Jacob Epstein, during a discussion on the naming of this new society, leaning against the mantelpiece and saying to the assembled company, amidst general approbation, “Let us call it ‘The London Group’”.

Charles Ginner, ‘The Camden Town Group’, Studio, November 1945, pp.129–36.
Wendy Baron, Perfect Moderns: A History of the Camden Town Group, Aldershot and Vermont 2000, pp.62–3.
Malcolm Easton, ‘The Camden Town Group into the London Group: Some Intimate Glimpses of the Transition 1911–14’, The Camden Town Group in Context, Tate 2011, http://www.tate.org.uk.

Helena Bonett
August 2011

Transcript

[Typescript:]

        THE LONDON GROUP.
   Meeting at 19 Fitzroy Street on November 15th 1913.

        Present
        W. Sickert, chairman.
R.P. Bevan             C. Hamilton
H. Gilman              H. Lamb
W. Ratcliffe           M. Drummond
J. Epstein             H. Squire
W. Bayes               E.A. Wadsworth
H. Sund                C. Ginner
Renee Finch            P.W. Lewis
E. Sands               S.F. Gore
C.R.W. Nevinson        F. Etchells
W.B. Adeney            J.B. Manson

Resolved that Mr Bevan be appointed Treasurer; that Mr Gilman act as President.
Resolved that the term of the Presidency should be one year.
Resolved that the Executive consist of the President, Treasurer & Secretary.
Resolved that the Society be called “THE LONDON GROUP”.
Resolved that the pictures of each artist be hung in a group
Resolved to arrange an exhibition in the Spring.
[Handwritten:] Resolved that members be elected by voting at a special meeting.

How to cite

Minutes of the Second London Group Meeting, 15 November 1913, in Helena Bonett, Ysanne Holt, Jennifer Mundy (eds.), The Camden Town Group in Context, Tate Research Publication, May 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/camden-town-group/minutes-of-the-second-london-group-meeting-r1104661, accessed 23 April 2024.

Galleries

The Camden Town Group in Context