In the early 1950s, a group of artists, critics, and designers gathered at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London to discuss a question that would shape British art for decades to come: how should art respond to popular culture?
The Independent Group, as they became known, met regularly between 1952 and 1955. Its members included artists Richard Hamilton, Nigel Henderson, Eduardo Paolozzi, and William Turnbull, alongside critics and thinkers such as Laurence Alloway, Peter Reyner Banham, and Toni del Renzio. United by curiosity rather than a single aesthetic approach, they were described by fellow artist John McHale as “a small, cohesive, quarrelsome, abrasive group”—and they liked it that way. As del Renzio recalled, “it was very hard for anybody else to get in even if they wanted to.”
The ICA itself, founded in 1948 under the presidency of Herbert Read and chaired by Roland Penrose, had already established itself as a hub for progressive debate and experimentation. The Independent Group thrived within this environment, holding lectures and discussions that rejected the division between “high art” and popular culture. They were fascinated by cinema, science fiction, comic books, and the rapid influx of American mass media, seeing in these sources a creative energy that traditional fine art often overlooked.
This embrace of popular culture was most clearly expressed in their exhibitions, notably Parallel of Life and Art (ICA, 1953) and the seminal This Is Tomorrow (Whitechapel, 1956). Paolozzi’s collages, made from magazine cuttings and mass media imagery, anticipated what would later become known as Pop Art, paving the way for Hamilton’s own iconic works of the 1960s.
The Independent Group and the Borough Group
Although the Independent Group and the Borough Group were contemporaries, their interests were very different. The Borough Group, led by David Bomberg and including artists such as Dorothy Mead and Cliff Holden, was rooted in painting as a fine art discipline. Bomberg’s emphasis on form, movement, and direct expression reflected a belief in the enduring value of painting as a medium of truth and vitality.
The Independent Group, by contrast, was as interested in images found in glossy magazines as in paintings hung on gallery walls. They questioned the very boundaries of art and culture, asking whether mass-produced media might be just as valid a source for creativity as oil paint or bronze.
Both groups, however, shared a spirit of experimentation and a desire to question the status quo. Where the Borough Group rethought painting for a post-war world, the Independent Group opened the door to a new visual language that embraced everyday life. Together, they form two distinct yet complementary strands of Britain’s rich post-war art history.