A fondness for dressing up: artists' clubs, the St John's Wood Clique and the artists' Rifles

Not less admired was the little company of artists [Rifles]. Such splendid beards, worthy of Titian, and such fine faces! Imagine some dirty little scrub of a Frenchman picking off his Stanfield, or potting a Millais, in an affair before breakfast! But there would be plenty of Englishmen left to avenge them, and to paint good pictures afterwards. Once a Week, 1860 Victorian artists loved clubs. While dreaming of election to the Royal Academy, the most prestigious of artistic societies, they established their own clubs; they organised and attended musical soirees where they mixed with potential patrons; they collaborated on artistic ventures and took sketching expeditions together; they chose to live close to one another in ‘colonies’; they drilled with the Artists’ Rifles, sang glees together, and some sat around the Punch table every Wednesday. Their antics were depicted in novels, gossip-columns and cartoons.

Here I explore the more serious aspects to their social gatherings by focusing on the St John’s Wood Clique, or ‘School of Slashed Breeches’, founded in 1862, and the Artists’ Rifles formed two years before.

My paper, in particular, consider aspects of ‘Englishness’ which appear to have informed and inspired both the social activities and professional productions of the members of these clubs. The artists trained in preparation to defend their country but also photographed themselves in historical costumes, rented historic houses and painted scenes from England’s past; they formed social links with nouveau riche collectors who believed gentlemanly credentials could be established through collecting works by English artists.