The Clique

school late 1830s-1843 London, England

The Clique was a group of young English artists formed by Richard Dadd in the late 1830s and active until 1843. Meeting as a sketching club, the members - Dadd, William Powell Frith, Augustus Egg, Henry Nelson O'Neil, Alfred Elmore, John Phillip, and Edward Matthew Ward - drew the same subject at each meeting and then asked non-artist friends to judge the results, a deliberate claim that art should answer to public taste rather than academic doctrine. In subject and spirit they followed William Hogarth and David Wilkie, favoring narrative genre painting over grand historical themes. The group broke up when Dadd was incarcerated after murdering his father; the others became successful Royal Academicians, and in the 1850s most turned their polemic against the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Lead image of the Wikipedia article "The Clique".
Lead image of the Wikipedia article "The Clique".Public domain (credit: Henry Nelson O'Neil) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Narrative genre subjects drawn from everyday and contemporary life instead of academic history painting
  • Anecdotal, story-like compositions: a dramatic or comic incident staged within a single frame
  • Polished, illustrative realism in the line of Hogarth and David Wilkie
  • Carefully observed contemporary costume, interior, and street detail

Key figures

  • Richard Dadd (1817-1886) — Founder of the group; visionary painter later confined after killing his father
  • William Powell Frith (1819-1909) — Genre painter whose memoirs are the main record of the group's meetings
  • Augustus Egg (1816-1863) — Genre painter and later a friend and supporter of the Pre-Raphaelites
  • Henry Nelson O'Neil (1817-1880) — Painter of literary and historical subjects and a caustic critic of the Pre-Raphaelites
  • Edward Matthew Ward (1816-1879) — History and genre painter who became a full Royal Academician

Example works

Sources

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