History
In 1904, William Gershom Collingwood, a prominent local artist and historian, organised an art exhibition at Coniston. There were 25 artists and they showed a total of 200 pictures.
This was the start of The Lake Artists Society.
(Above: William Heaton-Cooper painting en plein air. Below: Self portrait and painting by W. G. Collingwood.)
‘This thing will carry on longer than you or I.’
from a letter written from W. G. Collingwood to Alfred Heaton Cooper 1905
An art critic of the 1904 Yorkshire Post, reviewing the exhibition favourably, was probably first to mention ‘The Lake Artists’ as a distinct group of people. This was encouraging enough for Collingwood to invite those who had exhibited at Coniston to attend a meeting later that year with the express purpose of forming a new art society. The intention was to show work of the highest quality, to help make the Lake District a hub of artistic endeavour and to address an artist’s need for income.
No one knew how long the society would hold together or the significance it would have in the artistic culture of the Lake District. They merely hoped that it would last. In a letter from Collingwood to fellow Cumbrian artist Alfred Heaton Cooper in June 1905 he writes ‘This thing will last longer than you or I’. Wishful thinking perhaps but how prophetic these words have turned out to be.