Brighton to London, Paintings on Loan
Two paintings in our collection by members of the East London Group (ELG) have returned to their roots, temporarily.
They are on loan to the Nunnery Gallery in Bow Road for an exhibition In the footsteps of the East London Group (4 October – 22 December 2024), organised by Bow Arts.
The ELG evolved from evening classes in London’s East End, from 1924, led by the influential John Cooper. Walter Sickert was one of their early mentors and contributors. Other prominent members included Phyllis Bray, William Coldstream, Hamilton Dicker, Murroe FitzGerald, Archibald Hattemore, Elwin Hawthorne, Lilian Leahy, Cecil Osborne, Grace Oscroft, Brynhild Parker, Harold and Walter Steggles and Albert Turpin. Many were self-taught, working-class, part-time painters.
John Cooper wanted his students to “paint what was all about them, say, a dingy bedroom, and look at it in a new way”, and so the ELG artists were renowned for painting daily life in their immediate surroundings.
Our two paintings are perfect examples of the ELG values.
Harold (1911-71) and his brother, Walter, Steggles both worked as clerks and were significant members of the ELG .
This view is of the Bryant & May factory in Bow, East London. In 1911, it employed over 2000 women and girls but it closed in 1919. The London matchgirls strike of 1888 started there, which led to the first British trade union for women.
The building survives as flats.
Osborne worked at the local council as a draughtsman and was another celebrated member of the ELG.
This is a view from 221 Farringdon Road Buildings, Clerkenwell. This was Osborne’s home for 10 years. The shops that can be seen were underneath a residential block known as Corporation Buildings. Built as model dwellings in the 1860s they were the first council houses ever built in the UK and were demolished in the 1970s (as were Farringdon Road Buildings). The building on the left of the painting was, at the time, a bookbinder’s warehouse.
Acknowledgements: The East London Group and Lifelines Research.