A Countryman in Town: Robert Bevan and the Cumberland Market Group
Southampton City Art Gallery, until 14 December
The Women’s Land Army — A Portrait
St Barbe Museum, New Street, Lymington, until 10 January
The recent Camden Town exhibition at the Tate was a useful reminder of the originality of one of the few significant radical groups of modern British artists. It’s often said that the English aren’t joiners, but at the beginning of the 20th century when the Royal Academy dominated the London exhibiting scene, there were a number of rebel coalitions organised to provide mutual support and venues in which to show avant-garde work. The Camden Town Group was one such, and its successor, the much less-known Cumberland Market Group, was another. Robert Polhill Bevan (1865–1925) was a key figure in both, and in fact belonged to five different groups altogether, indicative not of a sociable nature but of the need for peer solidarity in the face of an uncomprehending public.
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