The Camden Town Group
I really like the work of Sylvia Gosse and I have included one of her studies Red Lion Square, oil on canvas 45cm x 34cm.
The composition is quite striking in the way that the figure to the left is heavily cropped. As you know this is a device used by Degas to create a sense of immediacy as we look into and beyond the room. In an abstract sense the painting includes strong vertical stripes and the use of bold shapes to frame the composition.
Here is a link to the Tate Research page about her work.
Walter Bayes is another lesser known member of the group. I include Street Scene ( Aux Dames des France) painted in 1927 it’s oil on board and measures 32.5 cm x 37cm.
It looks like a very modern picture in terms of both the simplicity of execution and the vivid use of colour - again in an abstract sense the red stripe (post) passing through the viridian patterns (trees) to the right of the picture works very well.
I attach a link to a Tate Gallery article about his work
The winner of the John Moores Painting Competition is Kathryn Maple. I have attached her winning painting ‘The Common.’ The picture is over 2m square - the warm blue violet and red tones makes the picture glow. Kathryn Maple is also a dual winner of the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition.
‘The dozen figures in the packed, sun-drenched park have no masks, no social distancing and not a care in the world. Kathryn Maple's painting The Common sums up the kind of scene that many people are longing to go back to soon. It's partly for that reason that it appealed to the judges of an award billed as UK painting's biggest prize. Michelle Williams Gamaker, one of the judges who have given it the £25,000 John Moores Painting Prize, said it "struck a chord during the judging". That is "perhaps because it depicts the very thing we are currently unable to share: the painting resonates with movement and communality, and embodies the deeply social nature of humans," she said. ‘ ( Ian Youngs BBC ) Further information about the winner and the show can be accessed via this link. https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/jmpp/john-moores-painting-prize