BYAM SHAW SCHOOL OF ART
The Byam Shaw School of Art, usually known as Byam Shaw, was opened in May 1910 by artists John Liston Byam Shaw (13 November 1872-26 January 1919) and Reginald 'Rex' George Vicat Cole (22 February 1870-4 February 1940) with the name Byam Shaw and Vicat Cole School of Art but soon became the Byam Shaw School of Art. It specialised in fine art and offered foundation and degree level courses. The teaching staff initially consisted of William Dacres Adams (17 May 1864-11 September 1951) and David Murray Smith (4 July 1865-29 May 1952) with additional lectures given by Caroline Evelyn Eunice Pyke Nott (Mrs. Byam Shaw 3 May 1870-16 January 1960), Kenneth Laurence Martin (13 April 1905–18 November 1984) and Percival George Silley (29 July 1873–8 April 1945) and other early staff members were Francis Ernest Jackson (15 August 1872–11 March 1945), who was principal of the school from 1926-1940, and Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (25 January 1872–10 March 1945). The original premises were at 70 Campden Street, London and in 1990 they moved to larger premises in Archway. In 2003 it was absorbed into St Martin's School of Art. There are over forty Suffolk artists who studied at Byam Shaw and Vicat Cole.
John Liston Byam Shaw also known as ‘Byam Shaw’ was born in Madras, now ‘Chennai’, India on 13 November 1872, and where his father John Shaw was registrar of the High Court at Madras. In 1878, the Shaws moved back to England, where they lived at 103 Holland Row, Kensington. At an early age, Byam Shaw showed artistic promise and at the advice of the artist John Everett Millais (8 June 1829–13 August 1896), he entered an art school in London’s St Johns Wood. As he grew older, Byam’s works attracted less interest and he turned to teaching to earn a living. In 1910, he and Cole founded the art school in Campden Street. Byam Shaw died during the great influenza epidemic that followed the First World War on 26 January 1919.