The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (338 page)

 
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New British Sculpture
.

A term sometimes applied to the work of a loosely connected group of British sculptors who emerged in a series of exhibitions at the beginning of the 1980s, notably ‘Objects and Sculpture’ shown at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts
and the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, in 1981. There is no single common factor linking these sculptors, but predominantly their work is abstract (although sometimes with human associations), using industrial or junk material, and most of them are represented by the same dealer—the Lisson Gallery, London. Among the leading figures are: Tony Cragg (1949– ), Grenville Davey (1961– ), Richard Deacon (1949–emsp;), Anish Kapoor (1954– ) (each of these four has won the
Turner Prize
), David Mach (1956– ), Julian Opie (1958– ), Richard Wentworth (1947– ), Alison Wilding (1948– ), and Bill Woodrow (1948– ). Most of these are well represented in the
Saatchi
Collection.

 
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New Contemporaries
.

See
YOUNG CONTEMPORARIES
.

 
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New English Art Club
(NEAC).

Artists' society founded in London in 1886 in reaction against the conservative and complacent attitudes of the
Royal Academy
. The founders—largely artists who had worked in France and had been influenced by
plein-air
painting—included
Clausen
,
La Thangue
,
Sargent
,
Steer
, and
Tuke
. There were about 50 members when the inaugural exhibition was held in April 1886 at the Marlborough Gallery. In 1889 the Club came under the control of a minority group led by
Sickert
, who had joined in 1888; he and his associates were interested in the
Impressionists
, and in 1889 they held an independent exhibition under the name ‘The London Impressionists’. Sickert resigned in 1897 (he returned in 1906) and from then up to about the First World War the NEAC was effectively controlled by Frederick Brown ,
Tonks
, and
Steer
. In this period it contained most of the best painters in England. From about 1908, however, it began to lose initiative to progressive groups such as the
Allied Artists' Association
and the
Camden Town Group
. After the war the Club occupied a position midway between the Academy and the avant-garde groups. With the gradual liberalization of the Academy exhibitions its importance diminished, but the Club still exists.

 
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New Figuration
.

A very broad term for a general revival of figurative painting in the 1960s following a period when abstraction (particularly
Abstract Expressionism
) had been the dominant mode of avant-garde art in Europe and the USA. The term is said to have been first used by the French critic Michel Ragon , who in 1961 called the trend ‘Nouvelle Figuration’.

 
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New Generation
.

The title of four exhibitions, sponsored by the Peter Stuyvesant [tobacco company] Foundation, held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, in 1964, 1965, 1966, and 1968, with the aim of introducing young British painters and sculptors to the public.
Op
and
Pop art
were well represented, but the series is best remembered for the 1965 exhibition, which featured a group of sculptors who were seen as creating a new school of British abstract sculpture, largely under the influence of Anthony
Caro
(most of them had been his pupils at St Martin's School of Art). Subsequently their work has been referred to as ‘New Generation Sculpture’. The leading figures were Phillip
King
, Tim Scott (1937– ), William
Tucker
, and William
Turnbull
(the only one of the group not connected with St Martin's). Their work had in common a liking for simple shapes and strong colours—sometimes close to
Minimal art
, sometimes with a Pop flavour.