School of Soho

This is an important, authoritative work of art criticism that recognises schools of painters, yet displays the superior distinctions of individual geniuses. Martin Gayford, The Spectator’s art critic, concedes that the identification by R.B. Kitaj, an American painter, of a ‘substational School of London’ was ‘essentially correct’, though in London there was no ‘coherent movement or stylistic group’.The only characteristic shared by London painters has always been merely that they live in London. There have been some influential personal relationships, even cases of a sort of cosiness, especially in the French Pub, the Colony Room and other drinking venues in Soho and Fitzrovia.

In this comprehensive, intimate inspection of the London art scene between 1945 and 1970, Gayford observes that there was a ‘great opening up’ immediately after the war. In that pivotal era, ‘a London art world that had previously been small and provincial turned its attention to what was happening elsewhere in the world’. Artistic dominance had shifted from Paris to New York, but London was becoming increasingly significant.

It takes many years of close-up scrutiny and intense conversations to become an expert art critic. Would-be painters who work hard at their craft are often lonely, need guidance and are glad to confide in a sympathetic, knowledgeable critic. ‘At one time or another,’ Gayford writes, ‘I have met and talked to many, indeed most, of the prominent artists’ discussed in this book.

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At the end of the second world war, a new generation crowded London’s art colleges as never before, with new experimental excitement. The young students overcame traditional conservatism and looked to the future rather than the past. Abstract Expressionism was an American creation. According to Gayford, the term Pop Art was a London coinage, but it was in New York that it was produced on a large scale.