Draw 15

The Society of Graphic Fine Art – The Drawing Society is the only national art society dedicated exclusively to drawing. Founded in 1919 in the etching class of the Central School of Arts and Crafts and boasting such alumni as Ronald Searle, Frank Brangwyn and Dame Laura Knight, today the Society promotes fine drawing skills in both traditional and contemporary media.

Each year an open exhibition is held at the Menier Gallery.

98 professional artists working across all drawing and printmaking media will show 251 works ranging from figurative to non-figurative, colour to monochrome, and from etching to collage. Dr Sumi Perera RE , whose work is in Tate Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean, and the Yale Cente for British Art, is strongly featured, as is Fred Cuming RA – the youngest-ever member to be elected to the Royal Academy in 1974, and one of Britain’s best-known contemporary landscape painters. Professor Ken Howard, OBE RA, and Maz Jackson, the internationally-renowned tempera artist, will also exhibit. The exhibition will be opened and the prizes awarded by John Huddy, owner and founder of illustrationcupboard – a unique central London Art Gallery representing the most distinguished contemporary book illustrators from around the world. They will be selected by Martin Shortis, a tutor at the Royal Drawing School.