Prospect recommends: Art

 



Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880-1900Royal Academy, 30th October-23rd January 2011

At the end of the 19th century, a group of young painters—most from Glasgow and all with strong links to the city—briefly became the epicentre of a new art movement. In defiance of staid Edinburgh, 23 artists took on the establishment with their radical designs, fresh colours and bold methods. They included the elegant Irishman John Lavery, the out-of-doors realist James Guthrie, Joseph Crawhall of the sun-splashed gouache ducks, the intense subtle landscapist James Paterson, and George Henry, a master of rich colour.

The “Glasgow Boys” were inspired by developments in Paris in the 1870s and 1880s—early impressionism, the naturalism of Jules Bastien-Lepage and the cult of all things Japanese—as well as by the moody landscapes of James McNeill Whistler. For 20 years, they ruled the roost. And then they were forgotten, eclipsed by the enduringly popular Scottish colourists. This show revisits their glory days and argues for their lasting influence. So popular has the exhibition been since its opening at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum that the RA has embraced its reinvention in London. The Fleming Collection and the Fine Art Society have also seized the moment to take their masterpieces out of store. With Gauguin at Tate Modern, this is an opportunity to reappraise a homegrown offshoot of impressionism.