The New English Art Club moves to a new date in your diary for 2015 and will become a fixture of the London Summer.
Showcasing the work of some of the finest figurative painters at work today, members’ paintings, drawings and original prints are shown alongside work selected from the open submission.
This year the Annual Open will include the works shortlisted for the £4,000 Haworth Prize. The new prize, sponsored by The Haworth Trust is for young artists from the North of England producing images inspired by the landscape around them.
There will be a selection of recent works by William Bowyer RA NEAC RP, who passed away in March this year. William had been a member of the New English Art Club for over 30 years. His portraits of miners’ leader, Arthur Scargill and cricketer, Viv Richards are in the National Portrait Gallery collection.
His two sons, Jason and Francis are also members and will be showing work in the exhibition. Jason will be showing work from his time as Official War Artist at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, the British Army’s logistics hub during the War in Afghanistan (see image above).
Continuing to build on its tradition of painting and drawing from observation, the New English is a vibrant and diverse group of visual artists whose work is highly collectible and widely admired.
Originally founded in 1885 in response to feelings that the Royal Academy was academic, stuffy and out of touch, the New English Art Club now has a number of Royal Academicians amongst its membership. Works by Ken Howard OBE RA NEAC, Bernard Dunstan RA NEAC and Diana Armfield RA NEAC will all be on display. For the first time the NEAC Annual Exhibition will be taking place during the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, giving visitors the chance to directly compare these, once rival, institutions.