 |
| L.S. Lowry Seated Model ca. 1914 drawing City of Salford Art Gallery, Greater Manchester |
 |
| L.S. Lowry Study of a Cast of an Antique Head ca. 1908 drawing City of Salford Art Gallery, Greater Manchester |
"Lowry's fame rests on his seemingly naive depictions of industrial townscapes, based on his home town of Salford. Yet he was in no sense a primitive artist. Before developing his distinctive manner Lowry had studied as an evening student at Manchester School of Art from 1902 to 1922, and attended part-time drawing classes at Salford School of Art from 1915 to 1928, where he had developed a competent if not particularly inspired way of studying the human form, working from both the Antique and the living model (naked and draped)."
"Lowry's development of his individual style in the 1920s can be related to a growing vogue for the primitive at the time. He was encouraged by one of his teachers, Bernard D. Taylor, to give his pictures white backgrounds, which eliminated shadows and emphasized flatness. Lowry himself felt very deeply that his breakthrough was the result of his meticulous training in the life class, rather than a rejection of it. 'I am tired of people saying that I am self-taught. I am sick of it. I went one day to Art School and I said 'please I want to join,' and I took Preparatory Antique, light and shade, and then, after a time, the Antique class, and when they thought I was sufficiently advanced in Antique I went into the Life Class. I did the life drawing for twelve solid years as well as I could and that, I think, is the foundation of painting."
"During the years leading up to the First World War, Gaudier was developing rapidly as an artist, stimulated both by the Parisian avant-garde and by the new sympathy for modernism that emerged in London in the wake of Roger Fry's 'Post-Impressionist' exhibitions. In 1912 he attended life drawing classes, where he astounded his fellow students by making numerous rapid sketches rather than a few meticulous studies. In a letter to his lover Sophie Brzeska he described this difference: 'The people in the class are so stupid, they only do two or three drawings, in two or three hours, and think me mad because I work without stopping – especially when the model is resting, because that is much more interesting than the poses. I do from 150 to 200 drawings each time, and that intrigues them no end.' He was following a method advocated by Rodin and by Epstein – as well as being practised by Matisse."
"Standing Female Nude is the only surviving picture of Coldstream's painted in the School of Drawing and Painting set up by himself, Claude Rogers and Victor Pasmore (later joined by Graham Bell). It was painted at the School's first location at 12 Fitzroy Street in the autumn of 1937. Coldstream, Rogers and Pasmore were leading figures in the group that became known as the Euston Road School, which sought to invigorate realist art at a time when modernism was increasingly being associated with abstraction and Surrealism."
 |
| Ivor Williams Plaster Cast of a Classical Female Head ca. 1930-50 oil on canvas Aberystwyth University School of Art Museum and Galleries, Wales |
 |
| Esme Millais Head of a Youth (after a Cast) 1929 oil on canvas University College London Art Museum |
 |
| Henri Gaudier-Brzeska Seated Model ca. 1913 drawing Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
 |
| Henri Gaudier-Brzeska Bending Model ca. 1913 drawing Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
 |
| Henri Gaudier-Brzeska Study of Torso ca. 1913 drawing Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
 |
| Henri Gaudier-Brzeska Study of Leg ca. 1913 drawing Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
"During the years leading up to the First World War, Gaudier was developing rapidly as an artist, stimulated both by the Parisian avant-garde and by the new sympathy for modernism that emerged in London in the wake of Roger Fry's 'Post-Impressionist' exhibitions. In 1912 he attended life drawing classes, where he astounded his fellow students by making numerous rapid sketches rather than a few meticulous studies. In a letter to his lover Sophie Brzeska he described this difference: 'The people in the class are so stupid, they only do two or three drawings, in two or three hours, and think me mad because I work without stopping – especially when the model is resting, because that is much more interesting than the poses. I do from 150 to 200 drawings each time, and that intrigues them no end.' He was following a method advocated by Rodin and by Epstein – as well as being practised by Matisse."
 |
| William Coldstream Standing Female Nude 1937 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
"Standing Female Nude is the only surviving picture of Coldstream's painted in the School of Drawing and Painting set up by himself, Claude Rogers and Victor Pasmore (later joined by Graham Bell). It was painted at the School's first location at 12 Fitzroy Street in the autumn of 1937. Coldstream, Rogers and Pasmore were leading figures in the group that became known as the Euston Road School, which sought to invigorate realist art at a time when modernism was increasingly being associated with abstraction and Surrealism."
 |
| William Coldstream Seated Model 1952-53 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
 |
| Francis Cadell Standing Model, Half-Length before 1937 drawing Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh |
 |
| Francis Cadell Model Study, Half-Length before 1937 drawing Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh |
 |
| Francis Cadell Seated Model before 1937 drawing Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh |
 |
| William Orpen Figure Studies before 1922 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
 |
| Leila Faithfull Seated Model 1925 oil on canvas University College London Art Museum |
 |
| Mary Dudding A Lincoln Model ca. 1935 oil on canvas Usher Gallery, Lincoln |
– quoted passages from The Artist's Model from Etty to Spencer by Martin Postle and William Vaughan (London: Merrell Holberton, 1999)