Review: New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2026

This is a very late review of the 2026 Annual Exhibition of the New England Art Club (NEAC) - which celebrates the 140th Anniversary Exhibition, which also remembered some of its past members.

NEAC 2026: The end of the West Gallery

I particularly liked the way that they included the surnames of past members on the title page of the Catalogue and also had paintings in the show by past member Paul Nash.

Title Page of the NEAC 140th Exhibition Catalogue

The 140th Annual Exhibition has 396 artworks and is on at the Mall Galleries until 20th June.

• the catalogue is available online on Issuu
• you can also view the 396 artworks online on the Mall Galleries "Buy Art" website

For some reason I didn't have the PV in my diary last week and since then my diary has been packed with hospital appointments.

However, on Monday, after the first physio date this week, I got myself to the Mall Galleries early and managed to see the exhibition with very few other people there - which is the way I like it. I can then see the art rather than people looking at art. PVs are a dreadful time to try and take pics of an exhibition!

You can see the results in the three Facebook albums I've created on my Making A Mark Facebook Page

• NEAC West Gallery - Annual Exhibition 2026
• NEAC East Gallery - Annual Exhibition 2026
• NEAC North Gallery - Annual Exhibition 2026

First five photos in the album about the NEAC Exhibition
in the West Gallery

Observations

Overall, I thought this was an exhibition which included some really excellent artwork - but could also have looked better than it did. It impressed - in part.

This is a review which reflects my likes and dislikes. I find I'm repeating myself each year. So this year my review is shorter than usual.

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

• This is the official call for entries https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/open-calls/new-english-art-club
• This is the official entry portal https://mallgalleries22.oess1.uk/
• you need to locate the correct exhibition as this is the entry portal for all FBA Exhibitions at the Mall Galleries
• UNFORTUNATELY the Full Details, Entry Terms & Conditions is a pop-up page and is NOT a downloadable PDF. Which means if you want to make a record for your files / notes - you have to copy and paste into Word - and then you can print it.

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

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.

Pricing your art for Open Exhibitions - a review of a sample of exhibition metrics for 2024

This is all about how to sell the art that gets selected for an open exhibition by a national art society.

One of the ways in which artists can promote their art is by being selected for an open exhibition by a national art society. 

However, they help their profiles enormously and enhance their case for membership of a national art society if they can also demonstrate that their artwork is not only good enough to exhibit - but it also sells!

I personally find it very frustrating every time I visit an exhibition is to see good art which is overpriced - and which I know will not sell.

None of what I say applies to any artist who is not dependent on their artwork selling to have a normal life. If you have independent means, you can price however you like.

By way of contrast, what I say is crucial to the understanding of those artists who "need to know" how to achieve sales i.e. study the marketplace, what's on offer and what the price competition looks like.

UPDATE 31 December 2024: This post has now been UPDATED with reference to artists who sold more than one artwork - providing summary details of the type of art and prices of sold artwork.

Why artists get prices for their art wrong

Artists are very invested in their art. They often price in an unsound way which reflects motivations which have nothing whatsoever to do with selling art. 

The reasons for getting the price wrong are:

• thinking too much about the hours and effort put into a painting and not enough about whether that's marketable
• not visiting an annual open exhibition in advance of submitting an entry
• not observing the prices of the work which has sold - when your research can be done online
• not looking at last year's exhibition online - and noting the price bands where there are few sales
• not reading this blog! I've been banging on and on about the need to tailor prices to the marketplace for specific art galleries. 
• specifically in relation to the FBA Societies at the Mall Galleries
• specifically in relation to pricing just below and not just above important threshold prices i.e. the level at which people start thinking "No" rather than "Yes" 

Bottom line, your art is only worth an "inflated price" if you can find somewhere where it will sell at that price. Otherwise it's just numbers on a label and a painting which will be returned to you unsold.

I can by the way spot all the artists who have been reading this blog and have adjusted their prices and are now selling again after a fairly rough marketplace in recent times. :) 

While writing this post, I also noticed an awful lot of artists who used to sell well on a regular basis who are no longer doing so. Time maybe to review their strategy for getting their artwork sold?

2024 Annual Exhibition Sales Metrics by FBA Societies

Below you will find charts of sales at the 2024 annual exhibitions of the art societies who belong to the Federation of British Artists based at the Mall Galleries i.e.

• Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
• Royal Institute of Oil Painters
• Royal Society of British Artists
• New English Art Club
• Royal Society of Portrait Painters
• Pastel Society
• Royal Society of Marine Artists
• Society of Wildlife Artists

Each chart is the exact same size - which helps make each comparable with the others. However the numbers of sales by members/associate members and those selected via the open entry are

• identified by price range in which they sold 
• with a coloured column each for member artists and open entry artists
• with an additional total column for all sales in each price range

UPDATE 31.12.24.: I'm also adding in - under each chart - the names of artists who sold well (as in 2 or more sales) in the 2024 exhibitions. It is possible to identify the TYPE of art which can sells well. Of which more in the future....

Who are the buyers at the Mall Galleries?

I started characterising buyers at the Mall Galleries as being essentially "middle class, middle aged and middle income" some years ago. 

• They typically like buying artwork priced at less than £1,500 - and they like it even more if it is priced at less than a £1,000. 
• You should bear this in mind as you review the charts and commentary below and as you check the profiles of the price ranges of artwork sold in the charts below

Essentially annual exhibitions at the Mall Galleries are about affordable art for most of those who visit, view and buy art.

Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours

They exhibited 450 artworks and sold 87 paintings (19%).

• members sold 47
• open entrants sold 40
• The top priced painting was £3,250

No open artist sold a painting for more than £1,000. 

There were a LOT of sales priced under £1000 with specific hot prices such as £650 and £450. Interestingly

• open artists dominated the below £500 category
• members dominated the £501-£1000 category

Unsurprisingly, watercolours are considered to be more affordable artwork - so long as artists produce suitable sizes and prices for them to be considered affordable. When they do, they sell like hot cakes!

Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours
Annual Exhibition Sales Metrics - number sold by price range and type of artist

Artists who did well include:

• Member: Matthew Phinn RI RSMA - 2 x landscape paintings @ £1,700 and £550
• Member: Paul Talbot-Greaves RI - all landscape paintings 2 x £400 and 3 x £750
• Member: Hannah Woodman RI - two watercolour and gouache landscape paintings @£3,250 and £1,950
• Member: Geoffrey Wynne RI - all landscape paintings priced under £2000, sold 4 including 3 at £850
• Open Entry: Miranda Brookes - sold two landscapes at £650 each
• Open Entry: Sandra Doyle - sold two botanical art paintings (£750 and £425), which she could have sold again and again!
• Open Entry: Julia Groves - 2 x flower paintings @ £870 each
• Open Entry: Kate Osbourne - sold 2 x watercolour and gouache paintings about allotments @ £395 each
• Open Entry: Jian Yuan Ong - sold 2 @£400

Note the theme re subject matter?

SEE ALSO: RI Annual Exhibition 2023: Analysis of art sales metrics and pricing artwork for the future

Royal Institute of Oil Painters

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.

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:

• view the exhibition in all three galleries of the Mall Galleries
• Dates: 23 June to 1 July 2023
• Hours: 10am - 5pm
• view the artworks online on the Mall Galleries website
• view my photos of the exhibition in the three albums I've uploaded to my Facebook Page
• West Gallery
• East Gallery
  
• North Gallery

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

• Sunday 25 June (12:30pm to 4:30pm): Portrait Painting Demo with Andrew James RP NEAC
• Monday 26 June: Exhibition Tours with Louise Balaam NEAC RWA - Tours will begin at 11am, 1pm and 3pm
• Tuesday 27 June (11am to 4pm): Sketchbook-making Demo with Robert E Wells NEAC RBA
• Tuesday 27 June: NEAC Annual Lecture: Thomas Hennell by Jessica Kilburn
• Wednesday 28 June: Exhibition Tours (11am and 2pm) and Sketching with Michael Weller NEAC
• Thursday 29 June: Exhibition Tours (beginning at begin at 11am, 1pm and 3pm) with Salliann Putman NEAC RWS
• Friday 30 June (11am to 4pm): Egg Tempera Painting Demo with Ruth Stage NEAC
• Saturday 1 July: Exhibition Tours (11am and 2pm) and Demo with Clare Haward NEAC

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.

Call for Entries: New English Art Club Annual Open Exhibition 2023

For some reason, the opening of the Call for Entries for the next NEAC Annual Exhibition in the middle of January passed me by. This post seeks to remedy my omission and to help non-NEAC members get your entry submitted by the deadline of Friday 10th March.

This post

• provides a summary of the Call for Entries - which is currently scattered across 3 websites and five sources of information (see FBA Calls for Entries could be improved and a lot simpler!)
• my commentary on the nature of this open exhibition which isn't included in the details of the formal call for entries - but I think people have found very helpful in the past in terms of:
• whether or not to submit artwork(s) to this exhibition
• how to tell whether their artwork makes the grade for this prestigious exhibition (look at images of the Annual Open Exhibition in 2022).
• a summary of what you can enter AND how to enter the next annual exhibition.
• a summary of prizes and awards in 2023.
• how to register your interest in becoming a member of NEAC - and exhibiting in this exhibition is one of the ways!

NEAC Open Annual Exhibition 2022: View of the East Gallery

Need to Know: A Very Quick Summary

This is a quick summary of what you need to know - followed by a much longer explanation of how the process works - WITH TIPS (in red)!

The NEAC (New English Art Club) is an elected society of contemporary painters whose ethos resides in art informed by the visual world and personal interpretation. NEAC About page

Note the emphasis on the word "painters"! It's not true and could be rather misleading. NEAC actually means artists - since they also accept drawings and original fine art prints in addition to paintings.

It is however an art club which is very focused on painting.
 

2023 Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club (NEAC) at the Mall Galleries 

• All entries are online and digital
• Deadline for open entries is Friday 10 March 2023, 12 noon

We recommend that artists submit well in advance of the deadline to allow time for assistance with their application if required. NEAC Open Call

• Selected works: MUST be delivered on Saturday 15th April 2023
• Exhibition Dates: 23rd June - 1st July
• Call for Entries: This is what you should read before deciding to enter this exhibition and developing your submission and entry
• Overview (NEAC)
• Details of how to submit: 
• Call for Entries (NEAC website) 
• and/or How to submit work (Mall Galleries - NEAC Open Call Page)
• Full Details, Entry Terms & Conditions on site used for digital submissions (OESS Page)
• Full Terms and Conditions (Mall Galleries)
• Frequently Asked Questions (Mall Galleries)
• Eligible artwork: Paintings, drawings, pastels, original framed prints (BUT NOT Photography OR Sculpture)
• Eligible artists: Any artist - over the age of 18 - living anywhere in the world

What's Different This Year?

• The NEAC website is much improved and now provides a LOT more useful and contextual information about past exhibitions. It's a pity none of this is included in the formal Open Call for Entries documentation! You have access - via the dedicated annual exhibition page - to:
• selected works
• a virtual view of the exhibition
• past exhibition catalogues - which can be viewed online (via Issuu)  or ordered. This provides details of prices asked for different artworks (of varying sizes by artists with different levels of experience and reputation).
• Three NEW awards - one worth £2,000; another is a two week residency above a Gallery in Hay on Wye and lastly free entry to more FBA exhibitions.

All the images in this post comes from the annual exhibition in 2022. 

You can also see more of the artwork for context and reference purposes in the following albums of images of the exhibition on my Making A Mark Facebook Page Albums Page

• NEAC 2022 - West Gallery 37 items
• NEAC 2022 - East Gallery 29 items
• NEAC 2022 - North Gallery: 37 items

READ MORE after this break

_______________________________________

Fred Cuming 1930-2022

I was so sorry to see in the NEAC Newsletter that Fred Cuming died in June. 

I very much recommend that anybody who admired his work takes a look at the Obituary about him on the gets on the NEAC - Remembering Fred Cuming (plus others below).

His landscape paintings were always a joy to behold and I very much regret I'm not going to see them anymore - except online.

Fred Cuming's paintings - which I'm very happy to stare at for absolutely ages. You can see more of his work on his website - Fred Cuming RA. Those who like the coastline and skies around Britain will appreciate his work.

Exhibition review: The Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition 2009

Central to his practice was to be the sketchbook, the making of what he called “notes” en plein air. Cuming would, as he said, “sketch and sketch … [keeping] sketchbooks everywhere, in my studio, in my bag, in the car”. At his peak, he would get through a hundred a year. Fred Cuming - Obituary | The Guardian

"Four Seasons" by Frederick Cuming RA (oil, 378 x 163 x 5 cm £115,000)
RA Summer Exhibition 2017 

Below are some highlights of his life, formal obituaries elsewhere, some examples of his work and a reference to a previous blog post in which I highlighted a wonderful video about his work 

NEAC Annual Exhibition 2022 opens tomorrow

The Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club (NEAC) opens to the public tomorrow at the Mall Galleries in London.

It's open 

• from Thursday 23rd June to Saturday 9th July 
• Hours are from 10am to 5pm every day, except the last when it closes at 2pm.

You can also view the exhibition online

• on the Mall Galleries website - sales are ONLY handled via this link if purchasing online
• on the NEAC website

a snapshot of artwork available to view on the NEAC website

You can also order an Exhibition Catalogue. The catalogue used to be available online via Issuu - but I can't find a link to a copy of the 2022 catalogue.

There are five FREE events taking place during the exhibition (access via exhibition ticket). You can find details of events on the events listings:

• here on the NEAC website - and 
• here on the Mall Galleries website

They include

• The Magic of Drawing with Neil Pittaway NEAC
• Action: The Art of Painting the Moving Figure with Toby Ward NEAC
• Designing and Painting a Portrait Sketch in Oils with Andrew James NEAC RP
• The Perception of Narratives with Robert E. Wells NEAC RBA
• The Process of Sketchbooks with Robert E. Wells NEAC RBA

Review: Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club 2021

I visited the Annual Exhibition 2021 of the New English Art Club at the Mall Galleries on Tuesday - and it was as if everything were normal again. Apart from the face masks, the galleries were full of the "double jabbed" all keen to see this year's artwork

What was odd was that there was rather less of "this pandemic year" than one might expect. Did artists not think it was relevant - or were they bored of it.

However, there was some excellent artwork recording life as lived over the last 15 months. I particularly liked the large painting produced by Sarah Godsill who is an artist who relates to the need to record historical memories. I couldn't agree more! I do however think her pricing is VERY ambitious - and I'll comment more on pricing later...

Spring Lockdown by Sarah Godsill (OPEN ENTRY)
whose work centres around figures
Interconnected (right) is by David Cobley

The reality for me is we never ever think war art is unusual - so why, given there was a LOT of very focused art producing during the Pandemic, is there so very  little in this exhibition? (Given the submissions for the previous exhibition had largely been submitted prior to the pandemic). It just seemed rather odd to me....

Was it filtered out by the selectors - or did they just not receive enough good submissions? Will we ever know? (I'd love to know which it was if anybody would like to tell me!)

The Annual Exhibition 2021

You can see my photos of the exhibition on my Making A Mark Facebook Page - which is accessible by everyone in these three albums

1. NEAC Annual Exhibition 2021 - East Gallery
2. NEAC Annual Exhibition 2021 - West Gallery   
3. NEAC Annual Exhibition 2021 - North Gallery

Incidentally, I mostly try to exclude people from my photos - they're in no way representative of the number of people in the galleries!

Thank you to all those who say they like looking at the exhibition they cn't get to in this way. You'll also find my blog post Three Virtual Views of the New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2021 helpful if you want to find out more about the art and who painted - and whether it is still available!

The Annual Exhibition continues until 5pm on Saturday 3rd July.

A number of my photos are annotated with details of the painter - particularly if it was work I liked, even more so if the artist had been selected from the Open Entry.

Artists whose work I liked

Below I'm noting the artwork I liked by artists selected through the OPEN ENTRY - with links in their names to their websites. 

 

NEAC is, after all, a good place to spot up and coming artists with new takes on how to create good art.

Three Virtual Views of the New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2021

If you're unable to visit the Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club - which opened last week at the Mall Galleries in London (closes 3rd July) - you can view it online - in three different ways

ONE. You can take the Virtual Tour - which requires navigation. 

NEAC Virtual Exhibition Tour

 

As previously, once you click the arrow (above) the Matterport software for some reason makes the colours seem much lighter and less intense that when artwork is seen in the Gallery. As a result I find it more difficult to recognise artwork by different artists - when normally it's no problem (i.e. colour and tone is part of their signature style). I keep noticing this with Matterport Virtual Exhibitions so can only assume it's the software. Or maybe somebody needs to review the settings?

However you can view the artwork in the galleries in a number of ways

• via the 3D Space - which gives you the sense of being inside the Gallery 
• or via the plan
• both of which are located in the bottom left hand corner
• on the bottom right you can expand the picture to fill your screen which is much the best way to view
• use your cursor to navigate - it takes some getting used to.
  

West Gallery

East Gallery

North Gallery

TWO: You can also view the Artwork selected for the exhibition on the Mall Galleries website - albeit you have to 

• scroll down on the NEAC exhibition page
• then page through (using the arrows at the bottom) the pages of artworks selected for the exhibition - from members and those selected from the open entry
• all artworks are ordered by the surname of the exhibiting artist. I always feel sorry for those whose surname is at the end of the alphabet given I know not everybody who starts looking makes it to the end....
• if you click the artwork you access a larger version with more details
  
• You can also see which artworks have sold. (Bearing in mind the exhibition was online for some time before it opened for real at the Mall Galleries). Initial review would suggest that my perennial advice about pricing is being borne out yet again.
  

However, there's no option to look at artworks grouped by:

• artist
• subject
• media

which is a pity as I like looking at all the landscapes (or whatever) at the same time. 

What's even more odd is that this facility is (partially) available on the website for the Artist Explorer - where you can search via artist name or medium.

I think that now that the buying public is switched on to online buying AND those of who are older are going to continue to be rather cautious re outings for quite some time, it's maybe time for the Mall Galleries to decide whether it's time to upgrade the software for viewing artwork to that employed by other galleries - to make it MUCH easier for people to view what they want to see.  

That's the pathway to more sales - making art more accessible. 

THREE: View it on the NEAC website

I personally find it much easier to view the artwork in the exhibition on the NEAC website - which has got HORIZONTAL arrows which advance groups of artwork automatically. Much, much easier with no scrolling involved!

Call for Entries: New English Art Club Annual Exhibition 2021

The deadline for open entries for the 2021 Annual Exhibition of the New English Art Club (NEAC) at the Mall Galleries is just over six weeks away - Friday 30th April, 12 noon.

The exhibition is currently scheduled for 25th June to 3rd July

I always go back to basics and look at how an art society describes itself. In principle this should help with determining what sort of art is appropriate for the exhibition.

Last year that the description had changed - but remains the same this year.

The New English Art Club is an elected society of contemporary painters whose ethos resides in art informed by the visual world and personal interpretation.

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.

All the images in this post comes from the annual exhibition in 2020.

Paintings in the 2020 exhibition

    

The nature of the NEAC Annual Exhibition

I'll reiterate below a number of important points about this exhibition and the association open submission

If you are considering whether to submit art via the open entry, it's worth paying regard to various aspects of the NEAC Open Exhibition. These are:

• LOTS of artists want to be a member of NEAC. (This page explains their route to membership). For example, very many members of the OTHER art societies based at the Mall Galleries would like to be a member of NEAC - so your competition is people who have already been elevated to membership of other societies belonging to the Federation of British Artists.
• that's because historically it's had
• status - this art society was established by people who broke away from the Royal Academy of Arts
• a good reputation (historically) for displaying lots of good quality artwork. Latterly I've argued that this has wavered a bit at times. 
• over £10,000 in monetary awards are now available - some of which can only be won by a non-member or an emerging artist.
• around 75% of the artworks hung are by members of NEAC
• around 20% of artworks hung come from the open and are 
• by artists who are not a member of any art society based at the Mall Galleries. 
• This is a LOT LOWER than the equivalent percentage for ALL other FBA Societies.

You can read about the ethos of NEAC and the Metrics (numbers / performance indicators) associated with the club in my call for entries last year. There's no point in updating this yet as 2020 was such a very odd year.

Different perspectives and media

Prizes & Awards

There are a number of prizes and awards - which are open to all artists submitting work via the open entry. These include:

Monetary Awards

• The Doreen McIntosh Prize: £5,000. In order to reflect the best in figurative painting in British Art, The Doreen McIntosh Prize is for an artist whose work fulfils the New English Art Club’s ideals of rigour, immediate engagement with the visual and a searching attitude.
• Chris Beetles Gallery Prize for Figurative Art: £2,500 for a non-member artist. Selected by Chris Beetles of Chris Beetles Gallery, St James's, London
• The Hermione Hammond Drawing Award: £2,000 for a drawing by an emerging artist aged 35 or under
• The Bowyer Drawing Prize: £500

Art Materials

• The Winsor & Newton Award: Art materials to the value of £500
• The Peter Ashley Framing Prize, presented by The Artistic Framing Company: A bespoke handmade picture frame will be created for the winning work, to the value of £500

Publication Awards

• The Dry Red Press Award: The winning work will be published as a greeting card in the Dry Red Press 'Prize Winners' range, with royalties from the sale of the cards going to the artist

You can see what artwork won which prize last year in 

• the 2020 Prizes Page on the NEAC website - plus videos by the prizewinners
• my blog post New English Art Club - Annual Exhibition 2020 (Part 2) - in which you can see the artworks framed and hanging on the wall

This is the video by Jason Line, the chap who produced an excellent drawing to win The Bowyer Drawing Prize in 2020.

Call for Entries

This is an OPEN EXHIBITION. You can find Information about the NEAC exhibition on the Mall Galleries Website.

West Gallery

Eligible artists: WHO can Submit?

Artists are invited to submit work for exhibition alongside members of the New English Art Club at their Annual Exhibition 2021 

Any artist, over the age of 18 - living anywhere in the world - can submit artwork to this exhibition. Both members of NEAC and other international or British artists are invited to submit artwork for consideration.

NEXT there are two DIFFERENT sets of information.

• The first are the terms of entry which are specific to this NEAC exhibition are in "What can you submit?" below
• the second is the standard/universal Generic Terms and Conditions relevant to submissions to ANY exhibition at the Mall Galleries by a society which is a member of the Federation of British Artists re. How to Submit and other Terms and Conditions of Entry.

Eligible artwork: WHAT can you submit?

New English Art Club - Annual Exhibition 2020 (Part 2)

 This is the second half of my post about the the Annual Exhibition 2020 of the New English Art Club which continues at the Mall Galleries - theoretically until 16th December (except London goes into Tier 3 from Wednesday 16th December which means you have one day left to this exhibition in person - see this article by the Museums Association) 

Part 1 of this post can be found here - New English Art Club - Annual Exhibition 2020 (Part 1) - which highlights the links where you can see ALL the drawings, paintings and prints in the exhibition.

This post focuses on 

• prizewinners
• the exhibition overall
• the catalogue
• pics I particularly liked

Small works in the West Gallery

Prizewinners

The prizewinners are as follows. You can also 

• view this year's prize-winning works on the Mall Galleries website - but I'm not sure how long that page stays up after the exhibition finishes.  
• view prizewinners on the NEAC website - and I checked and you can still see their 2019 prizewinners on their website

Very oddly there's no link to the individual page for the artwork on either site.

Below you can see all the winning artworks - plus other work I liked - which included other paintings by prizewinners.

New English Art Club - Annual Exhibition 2020 (Part 1)

I went to see the Annual Exhibition 2020 of the New English Art Club today at the Mall Galleries.
Third time lucky as it got caught twice by both the first and second lockdown - and very nearly wasn't going to be seen until the New Year. I'm guessing somebody said "no way is it being cancelled three times!".

Cover of the Catalogue for the NEAC Annual Exhibition 2020

I'm finding the pain from my "due an ankle fusion" right ankle means I'm exhausted by the time I get home.....

So what I've done is uploaded three albums of photos of the drawings and paintings exhibition to my Making A Mark Facebook Page - which are available to view by the public - so that all those who cannot attend can actually see the exhibition - and their painting if hung. I know this has been much appreciated by many people around the country who don't have a hope of getting to London.

(PS. My pics look to me much more like they do in 'real life' and less "over exposed / bleached / disneyfied" than some of the existing pics online and the virtual view of the exhibition online). 

I walked around the Galleries and took photos of all the pics and have arranged them in order in albums on my Facebook Page. Pics which won a prize and/or I particularly liked get a pic on their own. So if you follow the Galleries in the order they're posted below it will be as if you'd come round the Galleries with me at midday today.

View of East Gallery

These are the links to where you can see 

• all the paintings in alphabetical order of the artist's surname (scroll down the page to see - and then work your way through the pages)
• all the artwork in the East Gallery
• all the artwork in the North Gallery - look for the stunning drawing in charcoal which won the Bowyer Prize
• all the artwork in the West Gallery - this is by far the biggest gallery with the most artwork hung. 

view of West Gallery

I'll come back to this post later this week and update it - after a long sleep - with my thoughts on:

• prizewinners
• the exhibition overall
• the catalogue
• pics I particularly liked
• plus maybe some stats too.....

For those wanting to see the exhibition, you will need to book a slot in advance as there is control on numbers in the exhibition. It seemed rather quieter at midday - but then got busy again at around 2pm. I think the cold weather as well as Covid-19 is making it less likely that people are travelling.