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Spencer Frederick Gore, often known as ‘Freddy’, was in many ways the most important of the Camden Town Group (figs.1 and 2). It was he who with Walter Sickert gathered artists together to form the Fitzroy Street Group. He was also involved in the formation of the Allied Artists’ Association and was the first president of the Camden Town Group. He would undoubtedly have been the first president of the London Group too if he had not proposed Harold Gilman;1 Gore became the treasurer instead. He organised the Exhibition of the Work of English Post-Impressionists, Cubists and Others in Brighton in 1913, which marked the division between post-impressionism and what was to become vorticism.2 As Sickert wrote of his friend, ‘He took incessant risks, but he had social and artistic tact to a rare degree’; his short career – he was only thirty-five when he died of pneumonia – was still an ‘astonishing’ one.3
Gore was born on 26 May 1878 in Epsom in Surrey, the fourth child of Spencer William Gore (1850–1906) and Amy Gore (née Smith, William’s senior business partner’s daughter). His father was a partner in Smith, Gore & Co. (now Smiths Gore), who were land agents to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in Yorkshire; he was also winner of the first Lawn Tennis Championship at Wimbledon in 1877. Gore’s childhood was spent in Holywell, Kent. He attended Harrow School from 1892 to 1896 where he discovered his love of art, winning the first Yates Thompson Prize for drawing. He also inherited his father’s sporting abilities, excelling in cricket while at school.
Enrolled at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1896 to 1899, Gore’s contemporaries included Gilman (fig.3), Augustus John, Wyndham Lewis, William Orpen and Albert Rutherston, with many of whom he made lasting friendships. Gore was taught by Frederick Brown, Philip Wilson Steer and Henry Tonks. Although not much of Gore’s early work survives, some landscapes, such as The Cricket Match c.1908 (The Hepworth Wakefield),4 reveal the influence of Steer’s English impressionism of the late 1880s and early 1890s; Steer, in turn, had been inspired by Claude Monet as well as neo-impressionists such as Georges Seurat.5
Notes
Wikipedia entry
Spencer Frederick Gore (26 May 1878 – 27 March 1914) was a British painter of landscapes, music-hall scenes and interiors, usually with single figures. He was the first president of the Camden Town Group, and was influenced by the Post-Impressionists.
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Read full Wikipedia entryArtworks
Spencer Gore Richmond Park
c.1914
Spencer Gore Letchworth
1912
Artist as subject
J. Leger & Son (London, UK) J. Leger & Son exhibition catalogue titled ‘Exhibition of Modern Paintings’
1944
Anna Hope Hudson, recipient: Ethel Sands Incomplete letter from Walter Sickert to Nan Hudson, addressed Envermeu
date not known
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands
[March 1914]
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands, addressed Café de Rouen, Albert Gilles, Dieppe
1914
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Anna Hope Hudson Letter from Walter Sickert to Nan Hudson
[April–May 1914]
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Anna Hope Hudson Letter from Walter Sickert to Nan Hudson, addressed 6 Mornington Crescent, London
[1907]
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Ethel Sands Letter from Walter Sickert to Ethel Sands
[1914]
Paul Nash, recipient: Margaret Nash Private view card and letter from Paul Nash to Margaret Odeh
4 November 1913
Walter Richard Sickert, recipient: Anna Hope Hudson Letter from Walter Sickert to Nan Hudson
[c.March 1914]
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Re-Viewing the Camden Town Group – Part 1
Audio recording of the Tate Britain, Modern Painters symposium dedicated to the Camden Town Group and the Moderen Painters exhibition.
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Re-Viewing the Camden Town Group – Part 2
Audio recording of the Tate Britain, Modern Painters symposium dedicated to the Camden Town Group and the Moderen Painters exhibition.
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Metropolis and Modernity: Modern Painters Study Day
To coincide with Modern Painters: The Camden Town Group, this study day examines the Camden Town Group in the context ...
Features
Art Term
Camden Town Group
The Camden Town Group were a British post-impressionist group founded by Walter Sickert in London in 1911
Tate Etc
Family colours: Robert Bevan and the Camden Town Group
Tate's online research project, The Camden Town Group in Context, brings together much new material on the artists in ...
Press Release
The Camden Town Group in Context - new scholarly project launches on Tate's website
30 May 2012
Press Release announcing The Camden Town Group in Context - new scholarly project launches on Tate's website
Tate Etc
Dealing joyously with gross material facts: The Camden Town Group
Modern Painters: Sickert's famous dictum heralded a move towards a gritty realism in British painting
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