Society of Graphic Art

The Society of Graphic Art (renamed Society of Graphic Fine Art in 1986) is a British arts organisation established in 1919.

History
The Society of Graphic Art (SGA) was founded in 1919 by Frank Lewis Emanuel, whose idea it was, in collaboration with Frank Brangwyn, RA. "They met one evening at Mr. Emanuel's house to discuss the idea, and a Provisional Committee to promote the scheme was the result. To all intents and purposes the Society of Graphic Art was born there and then..." Brangwyn was appointed President, and Emanuel Honorary Secretary.

The Society was formed: for the purpose of holding periodical exhibitions of all the various forms of black and white art in a comprehensive and dignified manner. Its aim will be to firther the interests of British and Colonial artists who produce, in monochrome, examples of sound draughtsmanship in pencil, pen-and-ink, monotype, silver-point, dry-point, and in the various methods of engraving on metal, wood, stone, etc. The scope and scale of the scheme is purposely large, as it is desired to form, for the first time in this country, a powerful and thoroughly comprehensive body representing what has truly been described as the most potent and varied side of British art.

According to a respected art journal in 1921 "The foundation of a body to protect the existence of draughtsmanship was never more needed than at the present time." The editorial welcomed the formation of the SGA, as part of "a renascent school of thought", and praised the inaugural exhibition, held at the RBA Galleries in Suffolk Street, London on 1–29 January, 1921. By international standards the SGA was a late starter: the Canadian Society of Graphic Art was formed in 1904, and the Society of American Graphic Artists in 1915.

Over the years the "black and white" Society adopted the use of colour and broadened the range of techniques employed by its artists. The name changed to Society of Graphic Fine Art in 1986.

Some of the artists who exhibited with the SGA in 1921
In the catalogue of the SGA’s first exhibition the names of artists were usually shown with one given name and initial(s); here, they are shown in full.

§ Member of Council.

ǂ Honorary Member. • Cecil Charles Windsor Aldin

• Alfred Charles Stanley Anderson

• Douglas Sharpus Andrews

• § Anthony Raine Barker

• William Henry Barribal

• Charles Henry Baskett

• Ernest George Beach

• Harry Becker

• ǂ Robert Anning Bell

• § Alfred Bentley

• Ernest Blaikley

• Edmund Blampied

• ǂ Reginald Theodore Blomfield

• § Frank Brangwyn

• James Alphege Brewer

• Henry Matthew Brock

• Gerald Leslie Brockhurst

• Gordon Frederick Browne

• ǂ David Young Cameron

• Katharine Cameron

• ǂ George Clausen

• Herbert Cole

• ǂ Philip Connard

• Hilda Gertrude Cowham

• ǂ Frank Cadogan Cowper

• Elijah Albert Cox

• Nelson Ethelred Dawson

• Greta Delleany

• ǂ Frank Dicksee

• Herbert Thomas Dicksee

• Margaret Stirling Dobson

• ǂ Campbell Dodgson

• Alexander Warren Dow

• § John Robert Keitley Duff

• Charles Herbert Lewis Emanuel

• § Frank Lewis Emanuel

• Edward Frederick Ertz

• Herbert Granville Fell

• ǂ Samuel Luke Fildes

• Alexander Joseph Finberg

• Alfred Hugh Fisher

• Hanslip Fletcher

• William Russell Flint

• ǂ Stanhope Alexander Forbes

• Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale

• § George Vernon Meredith Frampton

• Annie French

• § Thomas Friedensen

• Ethel Léontine Gabain

• § George Percival Gaskell

• Robert Gibbings

• Leslie MacDonald Gill

• Edward Frank Gillett

• Madeline Green

• Bernard Finegan Gribble

• ǂ Maurice Greiffenhagen

• § Frederick Landseer Maur Griggs

• James Guthrie

• Philip Hagreen

• § Charles Haigh-Wood

• Ernest Llewellyn Hampshire

• ǂ Martin Hardie

• George Harrison

• Alfred Hartley

• § Dorothy Hawksley

• Elsie Marian Henderson

• Lilian Hocknell

• Gilbert Joseph Holiday(

• Gordon Cochrane Home

• George Percy Jacomb-Hood

• § Ernest Borough Johnson

• Esther Borough Johnson

• Alfred Garth Jones

• § Margaret Kemp-Welch

• William Gunning King

• Margary Joan Beeby Kingsford

• Joseph Kirkpatrick

• George Washington Thomas Lambert

• Percy Lancaster

• Dorothea Natalie Sophia Landau (Mrs Da Fano)

• ǂ John Lavery

• Mrs Charlotte Mary Lawrenson (née Thompson)

• Edward Louis Lawrenson

• Alfred Leete

• § Flora Marguerite Lion

• § Sydney Long

• ǂ John Seymour Lucas

• Ernest Stephen Lumsden

• James Hamilton Mackenzie

• Douglas MacPherson

• § William Westley Manning

• Frederick Marriott

• Charles Edward Marshall

• Frank Henry Mason

• Morton Mathews

• § James McBey

• William Monk

• Harry Morley

• John Charles Moody

• ǂ David Murray

• § Harold Edward Hughes Nelson

• Edmund Hort New

• Catherine Maude Nichols

• John Edwin Noble

• ǂ William Orpen

• § Malcolm Osborne

• § Edgar Edwin Lawrence Pattison

• § Charles Pears

• Marian Ada Peart

• Fred Pegram

• ǂ Glyn Warren Philpot

• Alethea Mary Proctor

• Raymond Ray-Jones

• Edward Tennyson Reed

• Warwick Reynolds

• "Rilette" (Charles Sykes)

• Percy Robertson

• William Palmer Robins

• William Heath Robinson

• George Herbert Rose

• Mabel Allington Royds

• § Walter Westley Russell

• Allen William Seaby

• ǂ Charles Haslewood Shannon

• ǂ Claude Allin Shepperson

• ǂ Francis Job "Frank" Short

• Robert Borlase Smart

• Robert Spence

• § Steven Spurrier

• Leonard Russell Squirrell

• Lester Sutcliffe

• Ian Strang

• ǂ William Strang

• § Frederick Henry Townsend

• Cecil Stuart Hazell Tresilian

• Sidney Tushingham

• Daniel Veresmith

• Ernest Charles Wallcousins

• ǂ Aston Webb

• Percy James Westwood

• John Laviers Wheatley

• Ernest Herbert Whydale

• Frank Wiles

• Dorothy Edith Griffiths Woollard

• ǂ William Lionel Wyllie