GRAPHIC SOCIETY
The Graphic Society was founded in 1833 by artist and inventor William Brockedon (1787-1854), who had also helped to form the Royal Geographical Society in 1830. The Graphic Society was limited, originally, to one hundred members, drawn from the various classes of professional artists. Their meetings, which were to take place once a month during the season (January to June), were to be known as conversazioni, and were to include aristocratic patrons and other persons interested in the fine arts. The initial breakdown of membership was forty painters, twelve watercolour painters, six sculptors, twenty architects and twenty engravers, together with a treasurer and secretary, neither of whom was to be a professional artist. Approximately twenty-five of the original lists of subscribing artists were members of the Royal Academy, although some named on the list declined to become full members. There was an annual subscription of one guinea for each member. Invited guests comprised amateurs and patrons of art, later described as honorary visitors, and literary and scientific visitors, who were proposed and elected at society meetings. Amongst many notables, the scientists Charles Babbage (1791-1871) and Michael Faraday (1791–1867) were regular attenders for many years. Members and visitors were asked to bring works of art, such as drawings, sketches, prints, gems, and other objects of vertú to the society's conversazioni, to contribute to the interest of the occasion. Eventually, minor exhibitions of the work of individual artists took place, including that of recently deceased members of the Royal Academy, and demonstrations of early photographic work took place in 1847. However, the original laws of the Graphic Society of 1833 warned against the introduction of any commercial element to the meetings, which should not be allowed to 'degenerate into a bazaar'. The management of the society was to be in the hands of an annually elected committee, originally of five members, eventually twelve, with a chairman, which met regularly to propose resolutions and direct the summoning of general meetings. A salaried collector received subscriptions and liaised with the treasurer. The society elected a president from 1866, and the incumbents included John Henry Foley (1818–1874), R.A. and Sir Frederick Leighton (1830-1896), P.R.A. Other influential Academicians included Thomas Uwins (1782-1857) and Lumb Stocks (1812-1892) other Suffolk members include Henry Bright and John Constable. Membership increased to 125 in 1852, and female members were admitted in 1887, but a general decline in membership and resulting financial difficulties led to the society being wound up in 1890.