Independent Group

Independent Group

The Independent Group was a progressive group of youthful artists, writers, and critics from the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1950s London.

The Independent Group, or IG, initially gathered in the winter of 1952-3 and reconvened in 1953-4. This group played a pivotal role in shaping, discussing, and disseminating fundamental concepts of British pop art and various new forms of British art during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Prominent artists within the IG included Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, John McHale, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, and William Turnbull. Additionally, the IG featured notable critics like Lawrence Alloway and Rayner Banham, as well as architects Colin St John Wilson, and Alison and Peter Smithson.

They revolutionised discussions about high culture by incorporating mass culture, reevaluating modernism, and pioneering the 'as found' or 'found object' aesthetic. This influential group, which has seen a resurgence of interest in a post-disciplinary era, was the focal point of a two-day international conference held at Tate Britain in March 2007.


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Parra's studio, with Parra at the centre, his back to the camera as he works on the large painting takes centre stage, showing a faceless blue woman in a striped dress, painted in red, purple, blue and teal. The studio is full of brightly coloured paints, with a large window on the right and a patterned rug across the floor under the painting.