Kitchen Sink School

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Kitchen Sink School. A group of British Social Realist painters active in the 1950s who specialized in drab working-class subjects, notably interior scenes and still-lifes of domestic clutter and debris; the term was coined by the critic David Sylvester (1924–2001) in an article in the December 1954 issue of the journal Encounter. The main artists covered by the term were John Bratby, Derrick Greaves (1927– ), Edward Middleditch (1923–87), and Jack Smith (1928– ), who were supported by the Beaux Arts Gallery in London (they became known as the Beaux Arts Quartet) and by the left-wing critic John Berger (1926– ); in 1956 they exhibited together at the Venice Biennale. By their choice of dour and sordid themes and their harsh aggressive style they expressed the same kind of dissatisfaction with the social and moral values of post-war British society as the ‘Angry Young Men’ in literature (writers such as John Osborne, whose Look Back in Anger was first produced in 1956, were sometimes referred to as ‘kitchen sink dramatists’). The mood did not last and from the late 1950s the painters of the Kitchen Sink School developed in different ways, Bratby, for example, emphasizing his Expressionist handling and Smith eventually turning to abstraction. Berger denounced his former protégés.

Kitchen Sink School. A group of British Social Realist painters active in the 1950s who specialized in drab working-class subjects, notably interior scenes and still lifes of domestic clutter and debris; the term was coined by the critic David Sylvester (1924–2001) in an article in the December 1954 issue of the journal Encounter. The main artists covered by the term were John Bratby, Derrick Greaves (1927– ), Edward Middleditch (1923–87), and Jack Smith (1928– ), who were supported by the Beaux Arts Gallery in London (they became known as the Beaux Arts Quartet) and by the left-wing critic John Berger (1926– ); in 1956 they exhibited together at the Venice Biennale. By their choice of dour and sordid themes and their harsh aggressive style they expressed the same kind of dissatisfaction with the social and moral values of post-war British society as the ‘Angry Young Men’ in literature (writers such as John Osborne, whose Look Back in Anger was first produced in 1956, were sometimes referred to as ‘kitchen sink dramatists’). The mood did not last and from the late 1950s the painters of the Kitchen Sink School developed in different ways, Bratby, for example, emphasizing his Expressionist handling and Smith eventually turning to abstraction. Berger denounced his former protégés.

Kitchen Sink School. A group of British Social Realist painters active in the 1950s who specialized in drab working-class subjects, notably interior scenes and still-lifes of domestic clutter and debris; the term was coined by the critic David Sylvester in an article in the December 1954 issue of the journal Encounter. The main artists covered by the term were John Bratby, Derrick Greaves, Edward Middleditch, and Jack Smith, who were supported by Helen Lessore's Beaux Arts Gallery in London and by the critic John Berger; in 1956 they exhibited together at the Venice Biennale. By their choice of dour and sordid themes and their harsh aggressive style they expressed the same kind of dissatisfaction with the values of post-war British society as the ‘Angry Young Men’ in literature (writers such as John Osborne, whose Look Back in Anger was first produced in 1956, were sometimes referred to as ‘kitchen sink dramatists'). The mood did not last and from the late 1950s the painters of the Kitchen Sink School developed in different ways, Bratby, for example emphasizing his Expressionist handling and Smith eventually turning to abstraction. Berger denounced his former protégés.