Systems Group

The group was formed in 1969 and its early members and exhibitors included Richard Allen, Anthony Hill, Malcolm Hughes, Michael Kidner, Peter Lowe, David Saunders, Peter Sedgley, Jean Spencer, Jeffrey Steele, Michael Tyzak Gillian Wise and Swiss architect and designer Max Bill. They developed canvases and constructions organised in arrangements free from painterly 'accident', subjective sensation or emotion, exhibiting regular constants and variables. The relationship between probability, distraction and chaos on the one hand, and regulations, law and order on the other was, however, considered to be of fundamental import in establishing an appreciation of the forces unlocked by the complexities of pictorial elements conforming to a system.

Sadly while the standing of British Systems artists is held in high regard in Europe, their accomplishments have been long ignored by the UK art establishment. Due to this fact and to revive interest, an exhibition entitled "A Rational Aesthetic: the Systems Group and Associated Artists" was staged at Southampton City Art Gallery in 2008. Following the deaths of Malcolm Hughes and Jean Spencer in 1997 and 1998, the surviving former members of the Group who remained the most active in 2006 are Jeffrey Steele, Peter Lowe and Gillian Wise-Ciobotaru.