The Camden Town Group in Context

The first election for new artists to join the London Group was held at this meeting. Members who could not be present for the election asked colleagues to be their proxy: Henry Lamb asked Spencer Gore (fig.1 TGA 806/10/6), Cuthbert Hamilton asked Edward Wadsworth (fig.2 TGA 806/10/6), Lucien Pissarro asked James Bolivar Manson (fig.3 TGA 806/10/6), and Malcolm Drummond asked Charles Ginner (fig.4 TGA 806/10/6). Although Lamb and Gore are not known to have been particularly intimate, the other requests were all to close friends. Lamb is the only one who states who he wants to vote for: Darsie Japp.

The rules for election had been agreed at the previous meeting, that ‘in the election of members one adverse vote should cancel one favourable vote and that to secure election a member must finally receive the votes of at least half the total number of members of the Group’. However, owing to the disparate artistic allegiances of the current members, no candidates gained over half the number of votes needed for election. This led Jacob Epstein to suggest an amendment to the rule so that only the votes of one third of the members were needed to secure election.

Of the unsuccessful candidates, the following were elected under the new rules on 3 January 1914 (TGA 806/10/6): David Bomberg, Stanislawa de Karlowska, Jessica Etchells, Douglas Fox Pitt, Sylvia Gosse, Thérèse Lessore and Walter Taylor. The others were never elected, despite being put forward as candidates two or three times. For minutes of the previous meetings, see TGA 806/10/6, TGA 806/10/6, TGA 806/10/6 and TGA 806/10/6.

Wendy Baron, Perfect Moderns: A History of the Camden Town Group, Aldershot and Vermont 2000, p.66.