St Martin's Lane Academy

St Martin's Lane Academy. The name of two successive organizations in St Martin's Lane, London, that were important training grounds for English artists in the half-century before the Royal Academy was established in 1768. They were founded in 1720 and 1735 respectively and each was a drawing and painting class rather than a professional institution. The first St Martin's Lane Academy grew out of another academy (London's first) established in 1711 in Great Queen Street, of which Kneller was the head. Thornhill replaced Kneller in 1716, and in 1720, when Thornhill himself was deposed by the French-born Louis Chéron (1660–1725) and John Vanderbank, the academy moved to St Martin's Lane. It became defunct after a few years, but Hogarth reconstituted it in 1735 and it remained active until his death in 1764. He described the room in which it met as ‘big enough for a naked figure to be drawn after by thirty or forty people’.