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The Selecting Jury of the New English Art Club, 1909

3 of 21 portraits of Walter Sickert

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© National Portrait Gallery, London

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The Selecting Jury of the New English Art Club, 1909

by Sir William Orpen
oil on canvas, 1909
27 1/2 in. x 35 1/2 in. (699 mm x 902 mm)
Purchased, 1932
Primary Collection
NPG 2556

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  • Sir William Orpen (1878-1931), Painter, Royal Academician. Artist or producer associated with 29 portraits, Sitter in 28 portraits. Identify

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Founded in 1886 as a progressive alternative to the Royal Academy, the New English Art Club (NEAC) continued to be a focus for the avant-garde in the Edwardian period. It identified with French painting, particularly the plein-air approach of the Impressionists. Orpen first exhibited with the NEAC in 1899 and continued that association until 1929. His painting shows elected jury members selecting works for the annual NEAC exhibition, its use of stippled brushwork influenced by Impressionism. By the time of Orpen’s painting, however, the NEAC itself seemed increasingly conservative to younger artists associated with the Fitzroy Street group. The sitters are from left to right: D.S. McColl 1859-1948; Alfred Rich 1856-1922; Frederick Brown 1851-1941; Ambrose McEvoy 1878-1927; Sir William Rothenstein 1872-1945; Sir William Orpen 1878-1931; Walter Richard Sickert 1860-1942; Philip Wilson Steer 1860-1942; Augustus John 1878-1961; Henry Tonks 1862-1937.

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Current affairs

The American retailer Harry Gordon Selfridge opens the first British custom-built department store on what was then the 'dead end' of Oxford Street. The revolutionary complex, considered the world's largest at the time, transforms shopping, offering diverse amenities including a post office and a library, and modernises the visual face of retailing through innovative window displays.

Art and science

The Frenchman Louis Bleriot becomes the first person to cross the English channel by aeroplane, winning the £1,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail, and greeted by cheering crowds at Dover station. Bleriot's flight also showed that England was, as H.G. Wells put it, from a military point of view 'no longer an inaccessible island'.
In dance, Alexandre Benois becomes the first artistic director of Sergey Diaghilev's innovative Ballets Russes.

International

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is founded in America to campaign for the rights of African Americans. One of the oldest and most influential civil rights movements, it was founded by a diverse group of individuals from mixed backgrounds, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Wells-Barnett, Henry Moscowitz and William English Walling.
The Selig Polyscope company sets up the first film studio in Los Angeles.

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