About FPS

 

FPS is an established artist-led organisation that promotes and exhibits a talented membership of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers and Photographers at renowned galleries in London and the South East. We hold monthly Artist Exchange sessions which support our collective of artists to present practice updates and offers the opportunity for us to share our work in an inclusive and supportive environment.

Established in 1952, FPS was originally associated with the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts). Early members featured many high profile and influential artists, including Roy Rasmussen, Maurice Jadot as well as ICA founding members E.L.T Mesens and Lyall Watson who both feature in the permanent Tate Collection.

FPS originally came to prominence by playing a significant part in the establishment of abstract art in the 1950's and 60's and were the first of a number of post war movements that freed artists from the orthodoxy of rigid and purely technical judgements. This ethos continues today and we welcome applications from talented artists at all stages of their career.

​

Key points: The ICA and the Free Painters and Sculptors

 

• 1952: ICA painters agree to form the ‘Painters Group from the ICA’ 

• 1952: First meeting includes fifteen ICA members. ICA painter Lyall Watson is elected Chairman

• 1953: First Annual General Meeting is held at the ICA in Dover Street. Chair of the ICA, Roland Penrose, who co-founded the ICA in 1947 attends. The name ‘Painters Group from the ICA’ is agreed and publicly declared by the ICA Management Committee

• 1953: The groups first exhibition is held at the Three Arts Centre, Great Cumberland Place, Marble Arch and is opened by writer John Berger

• 1954: Second annual exhibition of the now renamed group ‘The Free Painters Group’ at the Walkers Gallery, New Bond Street, is opened by ICA Chair, Roland Penrose

 

‘The term ‘Free’ appeared to confuse some of the critics, but there was no ambiguity among the members. They were outside the well-trodden path of academic art, finding other paths for themselves, mutually bound together in friendship and toleration’ Roy Rasmussen

 

• 1965: The name ‘The Free Painters Group’ is changed to ‘Free Painters and Sculptors’ during the Annual General Meeting held at the ICA in Dover Street