Henry Lamb Exhibition Salisbury Museum. It was quite a revelation to discover an English artist who’s contribution to this country’s art has been in the shadows for too long.
A retrospective at Salisbury Museum is to be congratulated – and it ends too soon – 30 September 2018.
Henry Lamb was a leading figure in the early 20th century, perhaps overshadowed by his contemporaries Stanley Spencer, Augustus John and other members of the Bloomsbury Group in London.
Lamb was a founding member of the pre WW1 Camden Town Group of artists that amongst others consisted of Walter Sickert (who helped Winston Churchill with his painting), Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis and Lucien Pissarro.
Lamb’s work is figurative and excels in capturing the essential essence of his sitters as well as the atmosphere of the times – especially his WW1 and WW2 depictions.
English art of this period has been largely forgotten as a result of the art world’s enthusiasm for the more avant-garde in France, Italy and Germany: Post impressionism, Expressionism, Futurism and other similar ‘isms’.
However, thanks to a renewed interest in this period of English art, especially with John,Lewis and Spencer, artists like Lamb can, as the Salisbury Museum states, can emerge from the shadows.
