Monday, June 16, 2025

Review: New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2025

I think it's time for a wake up call for NEAC. I'm guessing quite a lot of what I'm going to say may be thought to be complete heresy - but I'm saying it anyway, because everybody is entitled to an opinion.

When I went to the NEAC Private View for its Annual Exhibition I had a big surprise. 

NEAC Annual Exhibition on PV night

The previous week I had been in and out of the 40th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Botanical Artists which looked amazing in the Galleries. They hung 466 artworks in just the West and North Galleries - themed by subject matter and colour - however most artworks were small or medium size with some large mediums. 

Prior to that I'd visited the Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters - which was a really impressive looking exhibition - showing a reduced number of portraits (210 artworks hung) generally as a single row for larger works which shows them to best effect -  and appropriate to those likely to commission future portraits. It was a very classy shop window for what their artists can do, some of which can be large.

I walked into the NEAC Annual Exhibition and my eyes were assaulted.  (Check out the banner image on their exhibition page link)

I saw the complete opposite of the two described above.
  • there is a huge variety of styles - which is to be expected and nothing wrong with that.
  • however artwork was stacked high and close together - making it look very busy. 
    • This is a function of how many artworks were selected AND, very importantly, how big they are. 
    • I think this maybe dates back to the days when NEAC members liked to think of themselves as budding RA members, despite the fact the society was founded by a group of artists dissatisfied with the entrenched attitudes of the Royal Academy - (where the art was piled high in the Summer Exhibition).
    At the heart of the NEAC is the search, propagation, and education of meaningful and resonant art. It is committed to authenticity through the observation of life, as well as the task of articulating and communicating these ideas, with the beauty of skilful language. At the same time, it strives to keep alive the ideals and ethos of its history. About NEAC
  • There are 389 paintings hung in the show - whereas there are rather a lot of big to VERY big paintings 
    • which made the hang seem VERY crowded to me. 
    • I thought back to the extremely good looking recent exhibition by the Royal Society of Portrait Painters - who also hang big portraits - but they had fewer works hung. 
A very large artwork on a wall where several are very often hung.
  • Lots of artworks were VERY colourful - which is so much better than dull and drab.
  • HOWEVER those colours include lots of red and orange - which can be major league "thugs" if there's too much in one painting or in paintings adjacent to one another. Particularly when groups of paintings by the same artist are hung together.
    • Bottom line too much red and orange can behave rather like the bully in the school playground whose every move is “look at me”. 
    • They shout out and can totally drown out other artworks nearby. I almost always feel extremely sorry for any artist whose quieter work gets hung near a thug.  That's because it's always had its hang dicatated by the thug.
    • There’s a reason why such "thug" paintings in museums are almost always hung with LOTS of space around them - which is not the case in this instance.
    • to hang them close to other artworks you have to choose more subdued works which then disappear into the wall when surrounded by colourful "thugs". That painting of a garden is beautiful but stands no chance next to the paintings either side. I like subdued and subtle work, which works through a range of tones - but it's been skied and cannot be studied closely - as it deserves-  in this exhibition. It's playing a subordinate role - more's the pity.
    • I'd put all the visual thugs together in a small room and let them fight it out and "get the message"!
    • PS Don't get me wrong - I love colour - but I'm not fond of visual headaches!
Vibrant colours down more subdued and subtle paintings

In this instance the very colourful artwork gets more subdued artwork either side

What could have been a nice wall of landscapes
- except another red thug needs some more subdued paintings either side

Interestingly NEAC used to regularly hang over 400 artworks in their annual exhibition - but they were typically better organised and less thuggish. While they have always had large artworks, I think some of the large artworks have got much bigger.
Our Annual Exhibition is a showcase not only for its members but also for aspiring artists: with a history going back more than a hundred years, it is an opportunity for work to be seen alongside some of the best artists painting today, held at Mall Galleries in London. About the New English Art Club
The selection and the hang also gives me a feeling of this being a somewhat pretentious exhibition.

I actually left the PV early because I found the experience of the way the exhibition was hung - combined with the number of people at the PV to be just TOO MUCH for me personally. 
  • It was an assault on the eyes and ears at the same time - and I very much dislike that. 
  • I like to look at art when it's quiet. I doubt if I'll go to another NEAV PV.
For the record I much preferred how the large artworks were dealt with by the hang in 2023.
When I walked into the Private View of the Annual Exhibition 2023 of the New English Art Club (NEAC) yesterday, I was immediately struck by the new approach to hanging the exhibition in the East Gallery (2023 Review)
However, given I always write a review and have been doing for the last 18 years  I went back on Monday to have another look in a quieter environment. 
(see the end for links to all my past reviews of NEAC Annual Exhibitions over the last 18 years - going back to 2007)

I had another surprise - namely all the artwork I could not see at the PV because of bodies!

The need for NEAC to have a BIG Rethink



I think NEAC needs to have a VERY long hard rethink its annual exhibition
Specifically about :
  • their approach to private views
    • I remember when they used to have Buyers Previews (which were for those, like me, who prefer a quieter environment when they can see the artwork before they buy it)
  • the size of artwork to hang in their exhibition
    • I'm thinking of doing an exhibitions metrics post for this exhibition which will relate size to price to sales. Should be interesting!
  • the price of artwork hung in their exhibition
    • there are some artists who sell well elsewhere and on commission - and they aren't going to sell anything at this exhibition unless they paint small - but just because they need to price high doesn't mean everybody else should!! I'd want to see verifiable records as evidence for all those pricing above £2K
In 2023, the Number of artworks sold by price range include
over £2K is just 10% of those hung
over £5K is ZERO
Under £500 is 31% of those hung
priced between £750-£1,000 is 24%
priced between £1K and £1.5K is 23%
  • how many artworks a member can submit i.e. the space given to artists
    • one very large artwork = 4 medium sized artworks. Is that fair?
    • retail prices everything on space - why not exhibitions?
  • an artist's track record on sales relative to the space they get
    • Everybody needs to make money from the exhibition - to keep the gallery and the society going and to make artists' careers worthwhile - and able to afford their membership fees!
    • Anybody thinking open artists are just "pleased to get hung" hasn't been studying the commercial realities of late. 
    • a commercial gallery would be looking at ANY artwork from a commercial perspective - and why should it be any different in the Mall Galleries or NEAC for that matter?
      • can you keep hanging artists that never sell? Independent Fine Art Galleries not far from the Mall certainly wouldn't.
    • I am amazed again and again when I ask leading members about sales how totally  unaware they are of their own society's exhibition metrics
  • the lack of ANY price guidelines to BOTH members and open artists - resulting in some interesting insights post exhibition

Specifically they need to think long and hard about what they want the exhibition to look like and how they want to present it.

So, for example, if they want more bigger works then 
  • they need to hang less and 
  • do very much better marketing to people who have the houses big enough to hang them and the funds to buy them 
Bottom line - do artists really think that those who visit the Mall Galleries have houses big enough to have space for work like this? 

I've not seen big paintings sell at the Mall Galleries for quite a while.

Back when Lewis McNaught was Director, I seem to remember there were rather more evening functions for institutions in the City - and there were rather more people visiting the space with the funds to buy big paintings.

I'm not seeing large paintings sell well - or at all - this year either.

I'm puzzled by the rationale of artists producing big paintings 
  • Lots of very big paintings are unlikely to sell. Would they have submitted them if 
    • open artists had to pay the going rate for the wall space they occupy? 
    • members were limited as to the space they can occupy? (eg x square metres)
  • The only paintings which are selling are small. I've counted (twice)
From my perspective big paintings simply reduce the scope for more smaller paintings and add nothing to an artist's career if they don't sell.  This isn't the RP Exhibition with a commission room at the back of the North Gallery!

Prizes & Awards


You can see the artwork which won prizes and the names of the artists who won on this page on the NEAC Website

Interestingly they neglect to include the size and the media and the price.

A Major New Climate Emergency Prize


The exhibition for this is in the East Gallery with every artwork having a green Climate Emergency Prize label

Winner of the Climate Emergency Prize (£2,000)
Reduce Speed Now (Self-heal, Fipronil & Glyphosate) by Nessie Ramm
Oil on aluminium road sign, 120cm x 130cm

I was extremely disappointed to see that the winner of this major new prize has an absolutely  TINY label to announce the prize. Plus it is absolutely impossible to tell who had won as it looked absolutely identical to all the other labels 

I'm particularly gutted as I chaired the panel of judges who gave Nessie Ramm an SBA Fellow Grant to help her exhibit her roadwork verges paintings on traffic signs last year. She deserves better.

Also, if you’re going to have a prize why not hang them all together? It came across as a half hearted hang giving a strong sense of they started focused and then gave up! 

The Artwork

Like last year, the people at the PV and the artwork on the walls is looking different. 

A lot of the artists I started out with many years ago are no longer with us. 
four paintings by Judith Gardner (1952-2025)
who is still winning prizes!


Artworks included the following media:
  • paintings - in oils, acrylics, gouache, watercolour, and egg tempera 
  • drawings - in charcoal, pastels, conte, colour pencils, graphite, pen and ink and mixed media
  • fine art prints (very few) - etching, aquatint, wood engraving, 
In terms of the type of art
  • Nearly 50% of the artwork is landscapes and it's well over 50% by the time you add in marine and coastal scenes.
  • 22% are still lifes and interiors
  • 15% are portraits and figures
You can see albums of my photos of the exhibition on Facebook
East Gallery - on Facebook

Paintings

What I do know is well received are:
  • paintings by artists like Melissa Scott Miller - of places people know and which are colourful and cheerful but much less “in your face” and a much more "hangable" size
  • rather a lot of paintings by women painters who are becoming very old - but are still painting. People like June Berry (now 100 years old) and Jacqueline Rizvi (now 80) 
A Quiet Street by June Berry

Still Life with Chinese Teapot by Jacqueline Rizvi
  • small paintings - by those with limited wall space left!
I liked these two sets even more for the fact they were the complete opposite of visual thugs!

two very plain landscape structures by Sarah Granville NEAC

and 
Two landscapes in egg tempera
by Christine Allman
- the third sold early

Drawings 

There seem to be many fewer drawings than I’m used to seeing in the past. 
  • Was this be because they hung large drawings? 
  • Multiple instances of thugs hung next to more delicate work as if the latter does not matter
  • however there were exceptions - such as the suite of drawings by Felicity House (now 75) who won two drawing prizes.
Watercolour and pastel drawings by Felicity House

Sketchbooks on display in the East Gallery
Sketchbooks

One excellent aspect of this exhibition is the attention to exhibiting as many sketchbooks as possible in both the East and North Galleries

Reference: Past blog posts about NEAC Exhibitions


Below you can see my reviews in previous years
I've been trying to work out how to word this review of the 2013 Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club 2013. It might more accurately be described as a post mortem.

I've come to the conclusion that it's best just to highlight a salutary tale which is relevant to all art societies. They all have their ups and downs - and this is a tale of a big dip. Review: NEAC Annual Exhibition 2013
Posted by Making A Mark on Monday, June 16, 2025
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