Artists of the East London Group

The first study of the East London Group, telling the remarkable story of how a group of untrained London artists became an art world sensation in the interwar years.

Although the East London Group achieved commercial success and huge media coverage in the late 1920s and early 1930s, their story is relatively unknown today. Their atmospheric paintings depicting scenes from everyday life, their London surroundings and scenes from further afield are now highly sought after. Inspired by the charismatic teacher John Cooper, its artists, mainly working-class people with little art world experience, achieved shows at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, Tate Gallery, and around the UK. Then, amazingly, two of them reached the dizzying heights of the Venice Biennale in 1936. Their fans included such luminaries as Arnold Bennett, Joseph Duveen, Aldous Huxley, Ramsay MacDonald, Walter Sickert and Osbert Sitwell.

This fascinating book is based on correspondence and interviews with the last group members plus primary and secondary archival research over many years. It includes extensive artist biographies plus chapters covering the group members’ involvement in film, the stage and poster work, alongside stories of their mentor John Cooper’s mosaic revival and his wife Phyllis Bray’s huge murals for the New People’s Palace in Mile End Road, London.

Artists of the East London Group is the first study of this important group of artists, first published in 2012 but now expanded and updated with a new afterword on East London Group paintings that have recently come to light. Richly illustrated, the group’s story is examined in captivating detail, with biographies of all the artists and a list showing where you can see their paintings today.