Among the painters who interest me most and whose visual sensibilities have influenced me are the Camden Town Group, so-called because they lived and worked in the Camden Town area of London, particularly around the studio of their most famous and influential member, Walter Sickert. As a group they were particularly active in the early years of the 20th century, but some of them lived on after WWII. The Camden Town group were essentially post-impressionist painters in as much as, like the impressionists, they continued to be painters of light, but their colour palette was considerably more intense and solid than the impressionists. This effect can be seen in one of the most widely viewed of the Camden Town paintings, this London scene by William Ratcliffe.
 |
Hampstead Garden Suburb from Willifield Way (51x73 cm, Oil on Canvas)
|
Among the best known Camden Town painters, all of whom are worth looking at are Walter Sickert, Robert Bevan, Harold Gilman, Spenser Gore, Charles Ginner, William Ratcliffe, Lucien Pissarro (son of the Impressionist). Wyndham Lewis (the writer with dubious politics), and the great Augustus John.
Although Sickert was less bold (in colour terms) than many of the Camden Town Painters, his work
Ennui is perhaps the most famous of any Camden Town Group paintings. There are a number of versions of this painting but here is the most widely known one.
 |
Ennui by Walter Sickert (152x112 cm, oil on canvas)
|
Among the Camden Town painters, I think Sickert is rather over-rated. As a technical painter and a compositionalist, he is a remarkable expert. But he lacks the creative flare of many of his lesser known contemporaries. However, if you enjoy the more muted and melancholy effects of painting, he might be considered one of the high points of English painting.
On the other extreme of the Camden Town paintings are the works of Spenser Gore (1878-1914) who took colour to new heights. Gore died at the young age of thirty-five, but not before he painted some of the most interesting paintings of any English Painter.
 |
Spenser Fredrick Gore, The Beanfield, (30x40 cm, oil on Canvas)
|
Harold Gilman, (1876-1919) one of the group's primary members was an excellent painter, as can be seen in this work.
 |
Canal Bridge, (46x51cm, oil on Canvas)
|
Unfortunately, being a good painter did not make Gilman a good man, and he is sometimes noted for his total opposition to the inclusion of women in the Camden Town Group (or any other painting group to which he belonged). However, his opposition to women painters didn't mean that they have been entirely excluded historically from the wider Camden Town movement. One women who I would like to point out for her remarkable paintings was the Polish born Stanislawa de Karlowska (1876-1952). De Karlowska became involved in the Camden Town group because she had met and married Robert Beven at the end of the 19th century. De Karlowska was a talented and committed artist and many of her works exquisitely express the marriage of light and colour we associate with the Camden Town Group. As is so often the case, de Karlowska spent many years raising children and was unable to paint as much or develop as broadly as the male painters around her. And though she was excluded from the Camden Town Group exhibitions she was an integral part of the so-called London Group (an exhibition group formed in 1914 after the Camden Town group officially disbanded). Her work combines the colour and light of the Camden Town paintings with her own Polish folk art influences. These styles can be seen in these two paintings - First the "Devon Farmyard," a dramatic lanscape.
 |
| Devon Farmyard |
And second, the Swiss Cottage.
 |
| Swiss Cottage, (61x76 cm, oil on canvas) |
Though painting as an art form has largely lost its cultural cache and few people know painting or collect paintings, there is a great deal of enjoyment to be garnered from admiring the works of painters such as these. It doesn't really bother me that painting's status as been replaced by other, often technologically driven, art forms. Art forms come and go through the process of human society and development. I continue to paint every day and experience a indescribably excitement when I look at these paintings. I paint for my own personal reasons and try not to worry about my "place in history" or any such ego-driven concerns. But you don't have to be a painter to enjoy these works. Art is, after all, for everyone who needs it and can take pleasure in it.
