Modernism in Britain
Walter Richard Sickert | England 1860-1942 | Whistler's studio c.1918 | Oil on canvas | 91 x 71.5cm | Gift of Lady Murdoch in memory of Sir Keith Murdoch, KT, 1953 | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
The emergence of the modern era in Britain saw both progress and uncertainty. Following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, a series of important political, economic and social changes took place under the successive reigns of Edward VII and George V. The establishment of groups and entities such as the Irish Sinn Fein and Indian Home Rule Society threatened the colonial reach of the British Empire, while the growing wealth and industry of Japan and the United States rivalled Britain’s own. In the early part of the twentieth century, the stirrings of the Russian revolution and the fear of war with Germany contributed to a loss of belief in Britain’s supremacy and a general sense of unease. Developments such as the Labour movement, the international socialist movement and the movement for women’s suffrage indicated that attitudes and established beliefs were changing.
In 1900, London was the world’s largest city and, like Paris, attracted artists from abroad including Australia and New Zealand. British critics Roger Fry and Clive Bell had significant influence on London’s art world and encouraged British artists, and audiences, to accept the bold new French styles of Post-Impressionism.
Artists Walter Sickert and Philip Wilson Steer were important members of the New England Art Club – the first of a series of independent art groups established as alternatives to the institution of the Royal Academy of Art. Subsequently, other important bohemian groups were established: the Camden Town Group, followed by the Bloomsbury Group, emerged in 1911 and included Sickert, Augustus John, expatriate Australian Derwent Lees, Lucien Pissarro, Spencer Gore, Duncan Grant and Henry Lamb. These artists turned away from the idealism and sentimentality of the Victorian era and towards an abstracted post-impressionist style, focusing on realistic scenes of urban life, still lifes, portraits, landscapes and interiors.
