Independent Group

A group of artists, architects and critics first organised in 1952 by design historian Reyner Banham, (1922-1988) who met up at the ICA for discussions on technique and the adaptation and incorporation of ideas from science and technology into the arts. Its members, drawn from those of the ICA who were dissatisfied with that Institute’s policy towards modernism, included the art critic Lawrence Alloway, Theo Crosby, Toni del Renzio, Nigel Henderson, Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, William Turnbull and John McHale. Also included were architects Alison and Peter Smithson, James Stirling and Colin St. John Wilson. Their ideas were reflected in the Group's first exhibition Parallel of Life and Art held in 1953. In 1955, a forum on popular culture led to an exhibition entitled 'This is Tomorrow' and it was from this that British Pop Art was born.

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