NATIONAL PORTRAIT SOCIETY
The National Portrait Society was founded in early 1910, the announcement of its formation was made in February 1910 with Francis Harrison Howard (1874-1954) as its first chairman. It held its inaugural exhibition at the Cartwright Memorial Hall, Bradford in July-September 1910 with the first in London at the Grosvenor Gallery in London’s New Bond Street in 1911 which was their approved exhibition centre until 1921. Early members included Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (1872-1956), Thomas Austen Brown (1857-1924), Jacques Emile Blanche (1861-1942), Augustus Edwin John (1878-1961)), Arthur Ambrose McEvoy (1878-1927), David Muirhead, Sir William Newzam Prior Nicholson (1872-1949), Glyn Philpot, William Rothenstein (1872-1945), Sir Walter Westley Russell and Philip Wilson Steer later members included. In 1921 their tenth exhibition was held at the Grafton Galleries which opened in January when Alfred Munnings was one of the exhibitors and in January 1922 another exhibition was held at the Grafton Galleries which seems to have been their last probably due to the Grafton Galleries being no longer available for exhibitions. Augustus Edwin John (1878-1961) was President of this short-lived society in 1922 and 1923 but no exhibitions have been noted for 1923 when it noted that the National Portrait Society 'had no gallery of their own'. However, the National Portrait Galleries had a private view of their exhibition in January 1925 when Sir William Orpen was president and had on show a self-portrait which was then proceeding to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. In 1927 Francis Harrison Howard (1874-1954) was chairman of the now National Society of Portrait Painters but no further exhibitions have been noted. Members are noted well into the 1930s and in April 1930 Mappin Art Gallery had 'a third exhibition of works loaned by the National Portrait Society'.
There was also a different Modern Portrait Painters' Society of which Sir Gerald Festus Kelly (1879-1972) was a member of both at the time of his election as an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1922.