Review: Society of Women Artists Annual Exhibition 2018

The Society of Women Artists' 157th annual exhibition of 448 artworks - paintings and drawings in all media, fine art prints and ceramics, sculpture & 3D works - opened to the public yesterday in all three galleries of the Mall Galleries and continues until 1pm on 30 September 2018.

The end wall of the Main Gallery

This is an international exhibition with artwork being produced by women artists from the UK and abroad.

President Soraya French (fourth from left) with her fellow exhibition curators and organisers and curators

It's always most rewarding to see a national art society improve the quality of its annual exhibition over time - and the exhibition has improved yet again.

To my mind, this annual exhibition can now hold its own with the annual exhibitions of the FBA societies whose home is at the Mall Galleries.

Indeed the SWA was once a member of the FBA - before it withdrew - and I'm wondering whether this re-invigorated art society might find it worthwhile to review whether it makes sense to apply to be a member again. (I've recommended some number-crunching and weighing up of pros and cons! For the history of the society see the end of this blog post)

Below you can:

• view photos of the 2018 exhibition 
• read who won which prizes - which are not insignificant - and see the related artwork 
• read about what I thought of the exhibition

View of the north wall of the Main Gallery

You can also view

• the list of selected artists (pdf file)
• examples of exhibited work by members in an online gallery on the SWA website
• examples of exhibited work by non-members can also be seen on the SWA website

The new SWA President Soraya French attributes the improvement of the quality of work on display in no small part to the practice introduced by the previous President Sue Jelley of SELECTING ALL THE ARTWORK ON DISPLAY - including that by members This means that members must raise their game to stand a chance of selection against an increasingly robust open entry. To me this makes for a robust and sustainable art society in the long term as the open entry is the future life blood of an art society and without regular injections of new blood, an art society is at risk of its members becoming complacent - as has been seen elsewhere in the past.
(See also my comments on this topic in my review of the 2016 exhibition.)

Exhibition Metrics

There are 449 artworks in the exhibition. READ MORE......>>