Euston Road School

The Euston Road School artists' group, named after their premises at 314-316 Euston Road, was active between 1937-39, with its members favouring realism, instead of the contemporary trend of Avant Garde abstraction. The artists (either staff or students of The School of Drawing and Painting, London), used their modernist approach to make naturalistic imagery of everyday life, which they hoped would make art more accessible to the general public again. Their left-leaning political views were at odds with those of the Avant Garde artists who sought to isolate themselves and art from the people. The school would close in 1939 with the outbreak of WWII, as many of the members were called to the armed forces. There were, however, exhibitions of the group's work in 1942 and 1948. By 1949, William Coldstream, one of the group's founding members had left to work at The Slade School of Art. He had, however, created a group identity that would continue to influence, and be used to represent the new trend of naturalism in British art.