Original New Era Group Catalogue 1939
In 1939, five artists came together in Edinburgh to exhibit work that had little interest in following the usual rules. Their group was called New Era. It was a rather appropriate name.
When we think about Scottish painting in the first half of the twentieth century, certain names tend to dominate. The Scottish Colourists, the Edinburgh School, the familiar landscapes and still lifes.
But there was another side to Scottish art. Artists who were looking towards Europe, experimenting with abstraction and Surrealism, and questioning whether a painting needed to represent anything recognisable at all.
In Edinburgh, in the summer of 1939, five artists came together under the name of the New Era Group.
Their exhibition at Gladstone’s Land on the Royal Mile was a small but significant moment in the history of Scottish modern art.
And then, just a few months later, Britain was at war.
Original New Era Group Catalogue 1939 - Foreward
Edinburgh was not quite as conventional as we might imagine
The New Era Group did not appear out of nowhere.
Throughout the 1930s, Edinburgh had been developing a surprisingly adventurous artistic community. The Society of Scottish Artists was introducing audiences to European modernism, exhibiting work by artists including Paul Klee, Edvard Munch, Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst.
The influence of Cubism, abstraction and Surrealism was finding its way into the work of Scottish painters.
These artists were interested in something beyond recording the visible world. Dreams, imagination, memory, the subconscious and the possibilities of paint itself were all becoming subjects worth exploring.
Against this background, the New Era Group emerged in 1939.
Its five members were Rendell Wells, William Gear, Hugh Crawford, Joseph Forrester and Tom Pow.
Their exhibition at Gladstone’s Land brought together work that challenged more conventional ideas about painting.
It was not necessarily about producing something beautiful or recognisable. It was about finding different ways to express an idea.
The five artists
Weeping Christ - Rendell Wells
Rendell Wells
Rendell Wells was born in Glasgow in 1911 and had established himself in Edinburgh by the mid-1930s.
His studio was at 19 Church Lane, and he became involved in the city's artistic and literary circles.
Wells was interested in the relationship between observation, imagination and thought. His work moved between representation and experimentation, and his involvement with the New Era Group places him within Edinburgh's developing modern art movement.
During the Second World War, he served with the Royal Scots Greys and taught art to fellow soldiers in Newcastle. In September 1942, an exhibition of work produced by his students was held.
The connection between the experimental artist of 1939 and the wartime art instructor of 1942 is particularly interesting.
Both suggest an artist who believed painting could be something more than a straightforward record of what was in front of him.
William Gear
William Gear was born in Methil, Fife, in 1915 and studied at Edinburgh College of Art.
Of the five artists, Gear would go on to establish the most widely recognised international reputation.
His work developed towards abstraction, and after the war he became associated with the European avant-garde, including the CoBrA movement.
In 1951, his painting Autumn Landscape was purchased by the Arts Council of Great Britain following its inclusion in the Festival of Britain exhibition Sixty Paintings for ’51.
The acquisition attracted considerable controversy at the time.
Gear's involvement with the New Era Group provides an early glimpse of the experimental interests that would become central to his later career.
There is also an intriguing connection between Gear and Rendell Wells. Early works by Gear have been recorded as coming from Wells's estate, suggesting that their association extended beyond the 1939 exhibition.
Exactly how the two artists worked together, or how Wells came to possess those works, remains a subject worth investigating.
Hugh Crawford
Hugh Crawford was another of the artists associated with the New Era Group.
Unlike Gear, Crawford has left a much less visible record in the histories of Scottish modern art.
His participation in the exhibition places him among a circle of artists willing to engage with abstraction and experimental painting at a time when these approaches were still far from universally accepted.
There is more research to be done here.
Establishing the works Crawford exhibited, their subjects and their subsequent whereabouts would help build a fuller picture of his contribution to the group.
Joseph Forrester
Joseph Forrester is another member whose involvement with New Era deserves further investigation.
His inclusion among the five artists identifies him as part of Edinburgh's experimental artistic community in the years immediately preceding the Second World War.
As with Crawford, the surviving information is limited.
It is a reminder of how easily artists can disappear from the historical record, particularly when their work is not represented in major public collections or supported by extensive published biographies.
Tom Pow
Tom Pow was the fifth member of the group.
He is associated with the development of Scottish Surrealism and abstraction during the late 1930s.
Pow's work was included in the National Galleries of Scotland's exhibition A New Era: Scottish Modern Art 1900–1950, which revisited the experimental work of Scottish artists and the influence of European modernism.
His inclusion in that exhibition helped bring renewed attention to the original New Era Group.
Like several of his fellow members, Pow belongs to a part of Scottish art history that is still being pieced together.
The exhibition at Gladstone's Land
The group exhibited at Gladstone's Land on Edinburgh's Royal Mile in June and July 1939.
The choice of venue is rather wonderful.
A historic Edinburgh building, surrounded by centuries of Scottish architecture, housing an exhibition of artists who were looking towards an entirely different future for painting.
Contemporary newspaper coverage suggests the exhibition attracted attention.
The Edinburgh Evening News considered it well worth a visit, while The Scotsman offered a more questioning response, using the word “inchoate” in its criticism.
That difference in opinion is interesting in itself.
The artists were presenting work that did not necessarily fit comfortably within established expectations. Some visitors and critics were receptive. Others were less convinced.
The group was also photographed together outside the exhibition, reportedly holding a painting of the Crucifixion.
It is an image I would very much like to track down.
Five artists standing together in Edinburgh in the summer of 1939, with no idea how dramatically the world was about to change.
What happened to the New Era Group?
The outbreak of the Second World War brought an abrupt change to artistic life in Britain.
The five artists followed different paths, and the New Era Group did not develop into a long-running exhibiting society.
Gear continued his career and became an internationally recognised abstract painter.
Wells went on to teach art during his wartime service and continued painting in Scotland.
The subsequent careers of the other members are less extensively documented.
For decades, the group received relatively little attention in broader accounts of Scottish painting.
That changed in 2017, when the National Galleries of Scotland opened A New Era: Scottish Modern Art 1900–1950.
The exhibition took its name from the original 1939 group and examined a much wider history of Scottish artists engaging with European modernism.
It presented a picture of Scottish art that extended well beyond the familiar names and movements.
The New Era Group was once again part of the conversation.
Rendell Wells Sketch
Why I'm interested in them
I spend a great deal of time looking at twentieth-century British paintings, and one of the things I find most interesting is how much of the story remains relatively unexplored.
We tend to know the artists who became famous.
We know rather less about the people who exhibited alongside them, shared studios, exchanged paintings or simply worked within the same artistic communities.
The New Era Group is a good example.
William Gear went on to become an internationally recognised painter. But what of Crawford, Forrester and Pow? What happened to their paintings? Where are they now?
And what else might we discover about Rendell Wells and his connections to the other members?
The exhibition at Gladstone's Land took place more than eighty years ago, but the surviving catalogues, newspaper reports and paintings still offer the possibility of finding out more.
Five artists, one exhibition, and a rather interesting piece of Edinburgh's art history.
There's still plenty to uncover.