Birmingham Group of Artist-Craftsmen

The Birmingham Group of Artist-Craftsmen, sometimes referred to as the Birmingham Group was an informal collective of painters and craftsmen associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement working in England's second city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The majority of members either studied or were taught at the Birmingham School of Art and it was the School that formed the group's principal focal point. Several members also overlapped with other more local formal organisations, including the Birmingham Guild of Handicraft, the Ruskin Pottery and the Bromsgrove Guild. The Group commenced its loose beginnings in the early 1890's with several members being inclined towards the ideas and practices of John Ruskin and William Morris. Several had been commissioned by the Kelmscott Press, with Charles March Gere producing the famous frontispiece to 'News from Nowhere'. Many, unable to support themselves solely through their art, also became fine crafts makers as well as teachers.

There are few records and it is hard to authenticate details of any formal membership or indeed its cessation although it probably continued until the outbreak of World War II. It is, however, certain that artists who were associated included Joseph Southall, Maxwell Armfield, Arthur Gaskin, Sidney Meteyard, Henry Payne, Charles and Margaret Gere, Bernard Sleigh, Frederick Cayley Robinson and latterly Alice Coats. Some of their number later became involved with the Birmingham Surrealist group. The Fine Art Society held an extensive exhibition of the Birmingham Group in 1969 and their works were later seen in the important Last Romantics exhibition held at the Barbican in 1989.

Number of Artists referenced: 16