New English Art Club

New English Art Club (NEAC). An artists' society founded in London in 1886 in reaction against the conservative and complacent attitudes of the Royal Academy. The founders—largely artists who had worked in France and had been influenced by plein-air painting—included Frederick Brown (who drafted the constitution), Clausen, Stanhope Forbes, Arthur Hacker (1858–1919), La Thangue, Sargent, Steer, Edward Stott (1859–1918), and Tuke. There were about 50 members when the inaugural exhibition was held in April 1886 at the Marlborough Gallery in London. Several of them were members of the Newlyn School and various Glasgow Boys joined the following year. In 1889, however, the Club came under the control of a minority group led by Sickert, and in that year he and his associates held an independent exhibition under the name ‘The London Impressionists'. Sickert resigned in 1897 (he returned in 1906) and from then up to about the First World War the NEAC was effectively controlled by Brown, Steer, and Tonks (all of whom taught at the Slade School). In this period its members included most of the best painters in England. From about 1908, however, it began to lose initiative to progressive groups such as the Allied Artists’ Association and the Camden Town Group. After the War the Club occupied a position midway between the Academy and the avant-garde groups. With the gradual liberalization of the Academy exhibitions, its importance diminished, but the Club still exists.