Modern British

The term Modern British was coined during the art boom of the early 1980’s when the works of the French Post-Impressionist artists had reached such astronomically high prices at auction that collectors in Britain were forced to look closer to home for purchases at affordable prices. This interest soon spread to buyers from abroad, especially from the USA, and by the mid-1980’s the term had become sufficiently accepted within the art world for the major London auction houses to introduce sales under the heading of Modern British, and for this to become a specialist period for dealers and galleries. In essence the term represents the collective styles of the British modernist movements that developed out of opposition to the traditionalist views of the stalwarts of the RA and NEAC at the turn of the century. It thus covers the range of work produced by British artists from about 1910 onwards. It begins with the first Post-Impressionists – such as Sickert and Fry – and includes the wealth of groups, schools, movements and styles that developed thereafter, often one from another, all the way through to the Pop Art of the 1980’s and 1990’s.