Euston Road School

Euston Road School. A name coined in 1938 by Clive Bell for a group of British painters centred round the ‘School of Drawing and Painting’ that opened in a studio at 12 Fitzroy Street, London, in 1937, and soon transferred to nearby 316 Euston Road. Its founding teachers were William Coldstream, Victor Pasmore, and Claude Rogers, and the organizing secretary was Thelma Hulbert (1913–95), whose work included landscapes and pictures of birds and flowers; Lawrence Gowing was also an important member of the circle. These artists advocated a move away from modernist styles to a more straightforward naturalism. The School's prospectus said that ‘In teaching, particular emphasis will be laid on training the observation, since this is the faculty most open to training'. By encouraging sound skills in representational painting, the teachers hoped to end the isolation of artist from public that avant-garde movements had created. The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 caused the School to close, but although it was so short-lived, it was influential; the term ‘Euston Road’ was used for a decade or so afterwards as a generic description for painting done in a style similar to that practised by the founders. Coldstream, through his position as professor at the Slade School, was the chief upholder of the tradition.