ANGLO-FRENCH ART CENTRE
The Anglo-French Art Centre, sometimes the Anglo-French Art School, at 29 Elm Tree Road, the site of the former St John's Wood School of Art, was founded in 1946 by Alfred Rozelaar-Green (1917-2013) who spent two years studying physics, mathematics, and engineering at Cambridge University before leaving for London and the Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1937. The following year, Alfred went to Paris to study Fine Art at the Académie Julian and under the tutelage of the social-realist painter Marcel Gromaire (1892-1971). While in Paris, he met his first wife Nita Bassetti, an artist's model who had posed for Matisse, and together they had three sons. Green set about revolutionising British post-war art education by inviting artists from France and elsewhere to exhibit, teach and lecture. These included such luminaries as André Lhote (1885-1962), Jean Lurçat (1892-1966), Fernand Léger (1881–1955), Antoni Clavé (1913–2005), Germaine Richier (1902–1959). The centre maintained the old St John’s Wood Art School’s practice of inviting famous artists of the day to teach, to criticise the students’ work and to present prizes. Suffolk artists who studied and exhibited at the Anglo-French Art School include Eileen Bell, Tom Mallin and his wife Muriel Mallin other exhibitors include Jankel Adler (1895-1949), Robert Colquhoun (1914-1962), and Robert MacBryde (1913-1966). By 1951 Green had spent all his money, and the Arts Council withdrew its grant, and the centre closed when Alfred went to live in France until his death on 7 July 2013.