YELLOW DOOR SCHOOL OF ART

1896 - ?

The Yellow Door School of Landscape Painting was founded in 1896 by artist (John Francis) Frank Spenlove-Spenlove (24 February 1864–20 April 1933), at Church Hill, Beckenham, Kent but is better known as the 'Yellow Door School of Art' but was also known as 'Spenlove School of Art'. Spenlove trained within the more relaxed Parisian studio system, and he maintained that 'The French system of teaching is better than the English because French masters take students up and train them individually.' This was a firm policy and method which he adopted and followed all his life, running his own art school in much the same, less formal, and relaxed way. Thus, he allowed his pupils 'great room for individuality' and the additional scope to 'develop their very own style,' though endowing them with superior technical knowledge and the basis with which to accomplish it. The Yellow Door Art School was at 34 (later No.80) Beckenham High Street, but in November of 1917 it moved to its permanent home at 116 Victoria Street, London. The original building in Beckenham was destroyed during the Second World War and the schools records lost. Suffolk artists who studied at the Yellow Door School of Art include Paul Politachi, Rosa Ellen Tapp, Margaret Theyre and Charles Mayes Wigg.

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Works by This Artist