Showing posts with label NEAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NEAC. Show all posts

Sunday, March 15, 2026

FINAL Call for Entries: New England Art Club Annual Exhibition 2026

You have until 12 noon on Friday 20th March to submit your entries for the New England Art Club Annual Exhibition.

While the seriously committed will have submitted their entries already, there's still time to submit that work which you are pleased with.

Historically, the New English Art Club was founded by a group of artists dissatisfied with the entrenched attitudes of the Royal Academy

Today, its intent is spelt out by its President Patrick Cullen

At the heart of the NEAC is the search and propagation of meaningful, resonant art. It is committed to authenticity through the observation of life, as well as the task of articulating and communicating ideas with the beauty of skilful language.

FINAL Call for Entries: NEAC Annual Exhibition 2026


Entries from open artists are welcomed.
The NEAC 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 today.
I describe the process below. Here are the links to all relevant pages
NEAC is not an art society which is afraid of colour!
(NEAC Annual Exhibition 2025: End of West Gallery)

If you want to know what NEAC is about, take a look at my pics of the 2025 Annual Exhibition

Last year, the exhibition 389 artworks which included a lot which were big to very big - which made the hang look very crowded to me

Guidelines re Sales and Pricing

You can see the nature and price of the artworks which sold in 2025 by right clicking HERE and opening in a new tab

  • 60% were painted in oils
  • just over 20% were landscapes and cityscapes
  • just over 10% were portraits
  • just over 10% were still life
  • the remainder covered marine and coastal (4), other (1) and abstract (2)
In terms of sales, 17 of the 50 sales were by open artists - and the majority were by women. I think it not unlikely that most of the sales were heavily influenced by women too.

For the record, although I've not crunched the numbers for 2025, there are some guidelines for open artists if you want to achieve a sale
  • sales drop off once you breach £1,500 which I've identified for a long time as an important threshold for sales (i.e. not a lot above this, and these are mostly by members)
  • OPEN ARTISTS tend to do better in the £500-£1000 price range and pricing - and this is consistent across a number of the art societies exhibiting at the Mall Galleries
READ MORE......>>
Posted by Making A Mark on Sunday, March 15, 2026 0 comments
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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 0 comments
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Sunday, March 02, 2025

Call for Entries: New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2025

I should have written about the Open Call for Entries to the New English Art Club weeks ago! So apologies for that. 

This is a reminder that the DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES is Friday 14 March 2025, 12 noon

Most of this post is about how to enter - but I'm starting with two important considerations as to whether and why you might want to enter.

  • whose artwork gets hung
  • what prices artwork sells for

View of the East Gallery at
the New English Art Club Annual Exhibition in June 2024

Who gets hung

There have been two major changes in recent times. 

  • For a very long time (i.e. most of the time I've reviewed the exhibition) the open entry artists who got hung used to be dominated by members of other national art societies who also wanted to be members - but that has changed 
  • The ratio of artworks by members to non-members has changed and become more like other FBA Art Societies exhibiting at the Mall Galleries. (I bleated at PVs for years about "you can't call an Open an Open if 80%+ of artworks hung were by members!")
Last year the 409 artworks which were hung were distributed in the following percentages. This conforms to the now more usual notion that at least one third of artworks need to be from people who are not members of national art societies

Bottom line - there's now a much better chance of an open artist getting hung than happened in the past. 

While some open artists get more than one artwork exhibited, the majority only get one selected - so make sure you enter your very best!

Pricing is VERY important


The Messanine Wall always has a lot of small and affordable artworks

Another important thing you need to know before you proceed to consider "how to enter" concerns pricing of your artwork. 

This is important. You could waste your time if you want to sell but don't read this first.  

Below are two charts which indicate what artworks sold for in the 2023 and 2024 exhibitions across different price ranges. The second differentiates between members and open artists.
  • the 2023 chart compares artworks sold to artworks hung across various price ranges. Note that sales drop off once you breach £1,500 which I've identified for a long time as an important threshold for sales (i.e. not a lot above this, and these are mostly by members)
  • the 2024 chart indicates that OPEN ARTISTS do better in the £500-£1000 price range and pricing above £1,500 is tantamount to not minding spending a lot of money on entering and transporting an artwork TWICE (to and from the galleries) for no sale.
READ MORE......>>
Posted by Making A Mark on Sunday, March 02, 2025 0 comments
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Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Review: NEAC Annual Exhibition 2024


This review is rather later and shorter than I would have hoped for. However the Private View for the Annual Exhibition 2024 of the New English Art Club (NEAC) last Wednesday evening was the evening before my annual RHS Botanical Art Show Marathon started - from which I've still not surfaced. But I am having a break!

I arrived at the Mall Galleries just before 6pm and managed to get in and race around to get photos of the exhibition before the hordes arrived. Twenty minutes later the place was full!! By the time we got to the opening speeches and the awards the West Gallery was packed and standing room only overflowed to the messanine level - from where I took this photo (below)

Gyles Brandreth delivering an excellent speech to open the exhibition

I've uploaded the photos to albums attached to my Making A Mark Facebook page and you can see them there:

You can also see it online on the Mall Galleries website - and even buy artwork online!

This is also an exhibition which is timed to coincide with the opening of the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. If you're coming up to London to see the latter, then it's very easy to walk down to the Mall and visit the NEAC exhibition too. They make a very good pair of exhibitions to see in one day.

However this one finishes at 5pm on Saturday 22nd June.

The exhibition is open daily from 10am to 5pm until 22 Jun 2024.The Mall, London SW1. 
Admission £5, Free for Friends of Mall Galleries, Friends of the NEAC, and under 25s.
Concessions available. See the Mall Galleries website for full details.

East Gallery from the stairs

The clash with my Botanical Art Marathon with the RHS Gold Winners meant that I haven't had time to go back and see the exhibition again, which I often do when the exhibition is very crowded at the PV. Simply because there is no space to stand back and look at the artwork and no time to reflect on which pieces keep calling to you. So another look when it's much quieter is usually very helpful - but that hasn't happened this year.

Which makes this a difficult review to write.

I did however note one thing while at the PV - and that was how many people I was used to seeing were not there. The whole demographic of people attending the PV has changed quite radically from what it has been for many years. I learned later that the PV was clashing with the service/memorial for June Mendoza (who died recently) and that might well account for a lot of the faces which were missing.

However it did serve to remind me that I've been coming to these exhibitions on a regular basis for nearly 20 years since I took early retirement. I'm now a lot older than I was when I started and I've written more than a few memorial pieces for artists who have died in the last few years.

The PV felt to me as if there was a bit of a sea change was in the offing. The art looked a bit different and the people looked a bit different.
  • So far as the art was concerned, it's more because art I'm very used to seeing is simply not there any more (eg due to the passing of artists like Ken Howard, Tom Coates, Bob Brown) - and yet I was overjoyed to see 3 artworks by 104 year old Diane Armfield in the North Gallery. I love her drawings of sheep!
Three artworks by Diana Armfield RA HNEAC PS
  • So far as the people are concerned, I saw a lot of younger artists receiving awards - which is good and augurs well for the future
You can see the artwork which won the Prizes and Awards for 2024 on the NEAC website. They chose a number of the artworks which kept catching my eye as I walked around.

There are 409 artworks in the exhibition:
  • I saw some large imposing paintings - including one by the new President Patrick Cullen
  • I also saw a lot of much smaller paintings - and both members and non-members seem to have adjusted to the fact that we are not out of the woods yet in terms of the economy and making art more affordable is a good idea. At least those who gave their artwork more affordable artworks did - as these were the ones which were selling
If you go through the online view of the exhibition you can see the prices of artwork which has sold. 
  • There are still more than a few artists who have not yet adjusted to the new economic climate. 
  • If they're selling at those prices at their own galleries, then good luck to them. 
  • If they're not, then I recommend they study the sale prices.
I'll finish with a few artworks which caught my eye.

I'll start with a painting of a still life / interior which I've never ever seen before - and yet the inside of a tidy organised fridge makes an excellent subject for this really effective painting by Bernadette Timko. You never know it might become a meme! This absolutely bounced off the wall as I eyeballed it and submerged everything near it. That might because I'm a bit of a foodie and I do like a well organised fridge - but I think it might be to do with very good painting!

Fridge Still Life
BERNADETT TIMKO
Oil on board, 34x32cm (36x34cm framed)
£800 SOLD

On the subject of food, I was very pleased to see Felicity House had two more of her excellent compilation paintings associated with making a meal.

179 - Kitchen Composite and 177 - Cashel Blue & Pears
FELICITY HOUSE NEAC PS
Both: Pastel, 37x52cm (48x63cm framed) Both: £850

I was, as always, very taken with the egg tempera landscape paintings of Ruth Stage - particularly the one at the bottom which had the most persuasive clear warm water.

349 - Boating Central Park and 350 - Clear Waters
RUTH STAGE NEAC
Both: Egg tempera, 45x60cm (49x64cm framed)
Both: £1,900

I really liked this next painting a lot. It reminded me very much of the project which Michael Landy undertook to draw all the weeds seen on the streets of London. His etchings are now preserved as the Nourishment (series), 2002-3 in the archive of Tate Britain. I've visited to see them in person and they are amazing. I very much think he's also got scope for a series here.

295 - Not Forgotten
AIDAN POTTS
Watercolour, 51x36cm (62x47cm framed)
£1,500

James Crittendon had a standout work among some excellent monochrome drawings and fine art prints in the North Gallery. 

JAMES CRITTENDEN PS
Etching and drypoint, 71x50cm (86x64cm framed)
£595

I very much recommend that those who prefer drawings and prints to paintings make time to linger long in the North Gallery.

Prints in the North Gallery




Posted by Making A Mark on Tuesday, June 18, 2024 0 comments
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Monday, August 07, 2023

Remembering Tom Coates (1941 - 2023)

Tom Coates PPNEAC PPRBA PPPS PPSEA RP RWA passed away, age 82, on 20 July 2023. He was one of those artists I saw very often at the Private Views at the Annual Exhibitions at the Mall Galleries - as he was a member of so many! He had a presence - you always knew when Tom was in the Gallery! :)

Tom Coates 
(photo courtesy of Felicity House)

I've been waiting for some obituaries to be published before doing this post so that those who know Tom and his work can access them easily.  Below you can find:
  • a timeline of his life
  • notes of his major achievements, awards and prizes
  • links to 
    • interviews with him
    • obituaries about him

Tom Coates Timeline - Notable Events


You will note that it's very clear that Tom Coates worked hard to become an artist and then worked hard to be an artist - working with art societies, art galleries, on commission and with students.
  • born May 5th, 1941 in Aston, Birmingham
  • 1956 - 1959 - studied at the Bournville College of Art
"At my first college, Bourneville College of Art, my principal Capel Smith told me to go into graphics. “No,” I replied, “I want to paint!”
  • 1959 - 1961 - won his first scholarship to study at the Birmingham College of Art 
At my second college, Birmingham College of Art, I painted everything and anything – from industrial scenes to coal mines where I worked on twilight shift. I had no grant as my parents had emigrated to New Zealand, to the luxury of painting in the warmth of the studio.
  • 1961 - 1964 - won a Scholarship to the Royal Academy Schools when Sir Henry Rushbury was Keeper and Peter Greenham was Professor.
I was awarded a scholarship to the RA Schools where my life changed. I relished in the use of oils. My mentor was Sir Henry Rushbury; and I was influenced by Peter Greenham, Charles Mahoney and John Ward. The many prizes I won enabled me to survive.
  • Throughout his career, Coates taught at various art schools and workshops while devoting the majority of his time to full-time painting.
my photo of Tom Coates doing a Portrait painting demonstration
at the NEAC Annual Exhibition 2014
He loved demonstrating - playing to a crowd, telling yarns, unbeknown to his sitters putting horns on their head when it was failing and eliminating them as it progressed. Mary Jackson
Tom's library of old sketchbooks acted as a constant point of reference and he always drew from life. NEAC Obituary
Tom Coates sketching from life
(photo courtesy of Felicity House)
  • He has been greatly involved with a wide number of art societies - and President of FOUR
  • He has exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition since 1980 
  • He exhibited widely in the UK and in Kentucky in the USA and had one man shows at:
  • He worked on commission and accepted commissions from a number of prominent art collectors - including 
  • His work is in many UK and International private art collections - including the Royal Collection.
  • He was married to fellow artist Mary Jackson
  • He died July 20th 2023. His health had declined in recent years but he was still never happier than when drawing and painting - and he never stopped painting.....
Tom died peacefully at home in my arms surrounded by his family. Mary Jackson in RP Obituary

Mary Jackson and Tom Coates in 2022
(Photo courtesy of Felicity House)

Achievements


my photo of Tom Coates - wearing his Presidential insignia 
with his paintings at the NEAC Exhibition in 2014
    An achievement not bestowed on many artists was that he was the President of FOUR different Art Societies at different times.
    READ MORE......>>
    Posted by Making A Mark on Monday, August 07, 2023 0 comments
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    Tuesday, July 25, 2023

    NEAC 2023 Annual Exhibition METRICS

    It's been a long time since I reviewed the metrics of the Annual Exhibition 2023 of the New English Art Club. 

    Below is a summary - essentially for those artists submitting via the Open Entry, however I think NEAC members and others will learn something new as well

    New English Art Club Annual Exhibition in East Gallery, Mall Galleries

    What are Metrics?

    The metrics I use are numerical indicators of:

    • what the exhibition comprised
    • how many member / open entry artworks - and the average per artist
    • how many works sold
    • what price works sold for
    • how performance varied between NEAC members and open artists
    Below is my summary of of the metrics - the performance indicators - for the exhibition.
    • number of artists exhibiting - members and open
    • number of artworks exhibited - split between members and open
    • number of sales of artworks - categorised by price band and split between members and open artists.

    Number of artworks exhibited and exhibiting artists


    399 artworks were exhibited in the 2023 annual open exhibition - across all three galleries of the Mall Galleries of which all but 14 were for sale.

    Artworks included:
    • paintings - in oils, acrylics, gouache, watercolour, egg tempera and distemper
    • drawings - in charcoal, pastels, conte, colour pencils, graphite, ballpoint pen and mixed media
    • fine art prints (very few) - etching, aquatint, wood engraving, nkjet print, 
    [The exhibition of watercolour paintings by the former Prince of Wales - in the guise of AG Carrick - appears to have ceased.]

    Of the 399 artworks hung in 2023
    • 257 (64%) artworks for sale were by 75 (43%) members (of whom one had died in the previous year); 14 artworks by members were "not for sale" 
    • 118 (29%) artworks were by 97 (55%) non-members 
    • 12 (3%%) artworks were by 3 (2%) NEAC Scholars (who have been counted as non-members for the purposes of other calculations
    • 14 (3.5%) artworks (by 3 deceased member artists and two living members) were not for sale and were excluded from the calculations below.
    Note: 
    1. Prints have been excluded from the calculations if sold as "unframed" / direct from the artist. No figures are provided for prints sold.
    2. all figures subject to rounding.
    3. Back in 2015 some 1,000 entries resulted in 94 paintings, drawings, prints and watercolours (i.e. 9.4%) were hung alongside the 293 works by members - so the exhibition is now showing more works from the Open Entry.

    NEAC Member Artists

    Of the NEAC members:
    • the vast majority of living / practising artist members exhibited artwork in the exhibition
    • The majority of member artists exhibiting displayed 4 artworks with a few (typically older members) only displaying one or two.
    • 4 deceased members (Fred Cuming, Antony Green, Ken Howard, Dawn Sidoli) also had exhibits
    In relation to sales: a very large proportion of member artists had no sales at all. The pricing section will explain some of the reasons why.

    Of artists with sales, those who sold more than one artwork included:
    • sold 3 artworks: Diana Calvert, Melissa Scott-Miller. 
    • sold 2 artworks: June Berry, Francis Bowyer, Judith Gardner, Mary Jackson, Charles Rake, Richard Pikesley, Glyn Saunders, Sarah Spencer
    Between you and me, I think the ladies have the right idea!


    Artists from the Open Entry

    The selectors this year were treated to another record number of submissions allowing us to indulge in picking only the very best from so many good entries. Catalogue
    I'm very much not a fan of the term "record number of entries" in the introduction to the exhibition in the catalogue - without a NUMBER! Tell us how many!

    Of the 97 artists from the OPEN Entry:
    • 7 were members of other national societies (most of which are based at the Mall Galleries).
    • Leaving 90 artists with no affiliation to a national art society
    • The majority of the non-member artists only had ONE WORK selected from the open entry for the exhibition, with a few having two works.

    Average artworks per artist

    Member artists typically had four artworks hung. Overall the average was 3.4 artworks for sale per exhibiting member artist as some only submitted one artwork.

    Similarly, the NEAC Scholars each had four artworks hung. It's certainly an opportunity to make a big positive impression which not all capitalised on.

    Those artists selected via the open entry typically had just one artwork hung - with an average of 1.2 artworks per artist. 

    My advice to those submitting via the open entry is to submit just one - and make it a stunner!

    Artworks sold and price of artworks sold

    Now for the charts! I have to confess I've been through these numbers 4 or 5 times and keep coming up with a discrepancy of 2. I've given up trying to find it since the overall numbers stay very much the same.

    I'll start with the Overall Picture and then comment on the charts for NEAC and the Open Entry (which includes the NEAC Scholars artwork).

    Below the yellow is sales and the burnt orange is artworks exhibited. 

    NEAC 2023: Comparison of number of sales to artwork exhibited by price range


    HEADLINE: irrespective of how artworks were priced and/or how good they were - most sales were priced at less than or equal to £1,500. 

    I have been making this point for a very long time.  If you want to improve the chance of an artwork selling it needs to be priced at a level that the market is prepared to buy.
    READ MORE......>>
    Posted by Making A Mark on Tuesday, July 25, 2023 0 comments
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    Saturday, June 24, 2023

    Review: New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 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 (see my Facebook banner this week!)

    The East Gallery on Private View Day

    For the very first time large artworks have been grouped and hung from the top to the bottom of the East Wall. 

    Plus the acronym NEAC is very strident on the north walls of both the East and West Galleries.

    West Gallery - Preview Day

    It shouts "presence" - and coincides with the Summer Exhibition 2023 of the Royal Academy of Arts - from which the founding members of NEAC broke away back in 1885 to provide an alternative venue for showing art.

    Since then it has become the national art society that members of other national art societies want to be members of. Indeed, when the artists selected from the open entry are reviewed, very many of them are members of other art societies and some are candidates for membership.

    However, having both on at the same time provides an excellent reason for those outside London to make a trip (and possibly stay over) and visit both on a back to back basis!

    This is a review of the exhibition. I cover:

    • how to see the exhibition
    • events during the exhibition
    • observations on the exhibition
    • artwork I liked
    I'll be doing the stats about percentage of artists / artworks / sales relating to the open entry in a future blog post. 

    How to see NEAC Annual Exhibition 2023  


    I would ALWAYS recommend that all those wanting to submit work to the exhibition try and make an effort to see it in person.

    You can:
    Works are also available to buy both in the gallery and online - but will remain hanging in the exhibition until it has finished. There was a healthy show of red dots at the Private View. 

    I'll be doing my statistics review of the show - including prices and sales and the ratio of members to open artists at a later date.

    Two paintings by Judith Gardner NEAC RBA
    her paintings snapped up fast as per usual

    Exhibition Tours and Events

    You can find out more details on NEAC Events Programme

    Prizes and Awards


    You can read about The New English Art Club 2023 | Award Winners in this post. I've highlighted some of them in my albums of photos on Facebook.

    View of part of the West Gallery

    Observations about NEAC Annual Exhibition 2023

    My observations this year are based on assertions in the catalogue and observations in the galleries on broad themes which are recurrent across exhibitions.

    View of West Gallery on the afternoon of Private View Day

    Bold claims matched by reality?

    NEAC has never been afraid of making some bold claims. Below is a quotation from the email about the opening of the exhibition. While I would certainly agree with the second paragraph, the first is maybe rather over ambitious. I think there are one or two other art societies which might want to dispute this assertion.
    The New English Art Club (NEAC) exhibits the very best in figurative, observational and painterly work in the UK.

    The NEAC Annual Exhibition showcases paintings, drawings, and prints from its elected members alongside work by emerging artists whose ethos reflects its own: informed by the visual world and personal interpretation, while underpinned by drawing.
    When you make a claim as bold as this - you have to live up to it.
    READ MORE......>>
    Posted by Making A Mark on Saturday, June 24, 2023 0 comments
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