WOMEN'S INTERNATIONAL ART CLUB
The Women's International Art Club was founded in Paris as the Paris International Art Club in 1900 but changed its name in the same year. The club was to 'promote contacts between women artists of all nations and to arrange exhibitions of their work'. Their first exhibition was held in Paris in 1900 with another at the Grafton Galleries in New Bond Street, London in the same year, and was followed by a second show at the same gallery in March and April 1901 with the early annual exhibitions held at the Grafton Galleries, later at the Goupil Gallery and then at the galleries of the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street and Mall Galleries. The club had a limit of 150 members and initially only members of the club could participate in the exhibitions but from 1921, non-members could exhibit one picture for a fee. These exhibitions helped to make up for the lack of opportunity for women to exhibit at mainstream venues such as the Royal Academy. The membership of the club was international, and there were sections in France, Greece, Holland, Italy and the United States and some smaller exhibitions were also held in other parts of Britain and overseas until the club dissolved in 1976 but did hold a further exhibition at Greenwich in 1977. Suffolk artist members of the club included Margaret Delisle Burns, Elinor Bellingham-Smith, Winifred Buxton, Mildred Helen Collyer, Helen Dorothy Copsey, Delphis Gardner, Elisabeth Frink, Primrose Harley, Ruth Hollingsworth, Esther Borough Johnson, Orovida Camille Pissarro, Mabel Mary Spanton and Rosalie Winifred Thurston.