The artist R. B. Kitaj coined the phrase the School of London in 1976 when he curated an exhibition called The Human Clay, which celebrated the human figure as the central subject of art. Concerned with traditional themes of the figure, landscape, and townscape, the School of London is one of the liveliest and most idiosyncratic in contemporary painting.
This exhibition featured an outstanding private collection of contemporary British art that was never before seen publicly. Containing masterpieces by David Hockney, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff, Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews, R. B. Kitaj, Paula Rego, and many others, the exhibition was the first comprehensive showing of this remarkable group of artists who did so much to renew painting in Britain from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Venues
Yale Center for British Art: October 11, 2000–January 7, 2001
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College State University of New York:
January 28–May 27, 2001
Credits
The School of London and Their Friends was curated by Patrick McCaughey, former Director of the Yale Center for British Art, with the assistance of Emily M. Weeks, who was then a doctoral candidate in the History of Art at Yale. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanied the exhibition.