St. Martin's Lane Academy

The St. Martin's Lane Academy, a precursor of the Royal Academy, was organised in 1735 by William Hogarth, from the circle of artists and designers who gathered at Slaughter's Coffee House at the upper end of St. Martin's Lane, London. The artistic set that introduced the Rococo style to England was centred on "Old Slaughter's" and the drawing-classes at the St. Martin's Lane Academy were inextricably linked in the dissemination of new artistic ideas in England in the reigns of George II and George III.

In Britain in the early eighteenth century there was no organised public official patronage of the arts, aside from commissions for specific projects. There was no established body to compare with the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture that Jean-Baptiste Colbert had established in France, and no public exhibitions of recent paintings along the lines of the Paris salons, held every other year.

The closest approximation to an academic life-drawing class was established in Great Queen Street in 1711 under twelve directors, with Sir Godfrey Kneller as its governor. George Vertue, a founder-member, describes it as "the Academy of Painting", although there is no evidence that any painting was ever done there. Sir James Thornhill took over from Kneller in 1718, but a few years later, after a period of infighting, he started a new academy, conducting life-drawing classes from a room he added to his own house in James Street, Covent Garden, from 1724 while a faction led by John Vanderbank and Louis Chéron set up what they advertised as "The Academy for the Improvement of Painters and Sculptors by drawing from the Naked" at premises in St Martin's Lane. It proved popular, but failed after a few years when the subscriptions were embezzled by the treasurer . Thornhill continued his life-classes until his death in May 1734, but had little success in finding subscribers. Hogarth, (who was Thornhill's son-in-law) attributed its failure at least in part to the competition from Vanderbank and Cheron.

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