Drawing attention

Contemporary Review, Jan, 1998 by Geraldine Jones

Frank Brangwyn had worked in the Oxford Street workshops of William Morris where he was engaged in making facsimiles of Flemish tapestries. This undoubtedly influenced his style of painting which is full of energetic marks. He was a brilliant draughtsman and soon achieved success. After completing many public commissions, he was an artist of high renown when he became President of the Society of Graphic Artists, as it was then named. The reputation of the Society must have been helped after Brangwyn's highly successful 1924 retrospective exhibition which was opened by the then Prime Minister, Ramsey MacDonald.

Frank Brangwyn's years as First President of the Society of Graphic Artists cannot have been easy as disagreements arose among the members. While the sympathies of the Vice President, Frank Emmanuel, were the inspiration for the formation of the Society, some of the members started to see his unrelenting attitudes as backward looking, particularly as the press indicated as much. They saw this as being detrimental to the Society as a whole and wanted a more progressive outlook whilst maintaining a strict regard for the principles of good drawing. This was resolved gradually as the Society grew and abstract art became more widely accepted. Many abstract artists were excellent draughtsmen, and so gradually non-figurative work and work in colour were accepted to be exhibited alongside work of a more traditional nature at the Society of Graphic Artists' annual exhibition. The Society's exhibitions have remained varied in both style and content, as well as in technique, to the present day.

The Society of Graphic Artists became well established with annual shows at the Mall Galleries to whom it became affiliated, but there was a growing unease about the name of the Society. The inclusion of the word 'Graphic' led many people to believe that the work of the members was of a commercial nature as in advertising and the press. Whilst the Society did produce work of a high standard of draughtsmanship, its aim was to take this further from commercialism into the area of Fine Art. The name of the Society was discussed for some years and eventually in 1988 the members overwhelmingly voted to include the term Fine Art so that henceforth the Society was known as the Society of Graphic Fine Art.

There have been many worthy Presidents of the Society following in the footsteps of Frank Brangwyn, but none more so than Lorna B. Kell, an artist of repute who was President for eleven years. She saw the Society through some difficult times, as when the Mall Galleries requested that the Society of Graphic Fine Art, along with most of the other societies, resign its affiliation with the Federation of British Artists. A new venue had to be found for the annual exhibition and the Knapp Gallery in Regents Park became the Society's shows"home' for a number of years. Through her untiring work for the Society, Lorna Kell helped to keep it well established at a time when art was often ridiculed by the public as conceptual art became the latest trend. The Society of Graphic Fine Art continued to show that traditional skills and values were still ardently followed. The Society of Graphic Fine Art has continued to grow in membership and as the exhibitions became larger a change of venue was again deemed necessary. The Art Connoisseur Gallery, London W1, now houses the annual exhibition.