I am delighted to present ‘Now and Then’ an exhibition by a group of artists living and working in the East End of London in the spirit of the original East London Group of artists active from the 1920’s.
The recent resurgence of interest in the history of the East End of London has been demonstrated by the extraordinary success of ‘Spitalfields Life’ and the campaigns to preserve such buildings as The Marquis of Lansdowne, precisely because they reflect the way in which ordinary people lived their lives.
In the 1930’s a group of artists were inspired to record the stark beauty of Whitechapel, Bow and Stratford as recounted by David Buckman in his ‘From Bow to Biennale’ published recently and now a new group of artists has been similarly inspired to record these streets as they undergo the upheavals of gentrification and re-generation. We are fortunate to be able to show some of the original East London Group’s works alongside that of the new group in the forthcoming exhibition and also to be able to include some works by Anthony Eyton who had a studio in Spitalfields from 1968 – 1982 and who forms the perfect link between the two groups.