Artists303 was formed in 1965 in the Somerset town of Ilminster and named after the arterial road linking London to the West Country, along which many of its members lived and travelled.
Joy Barnes, now sadly deceased, was one such founding member. After training at the Chelsea School of Art under Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland, she moved to Somerset in 1965 where she became a member of a Contemporary Arts group that had formed in Ilminster. This group, galvanised by a Summer Course taught by Frank Lisle from Leeds College of Art and by their enthusiasm for contemporary art, soon broke with the ( perfectly respectable ) Ilminster Art Society.
Artists303 was born.
In the early years the group’s home gallery was the new and spacious Butlin Gallery at Dillington House. The annual exhibition showed off the fruits of the Summer Course in which working with colour was a major preoccupation. The success of the shows attracted many other local, practising artists, working in a wide range of styles and media. Artists303 rapidly gained a reputation for innovation, diversity and quality.
With the loss of the Butlin Gallery in the early 1980s as a result of reorganisation at Dillington, Artists303 had to search for a new gallery space. The county Art’s Centres were the first resort and then further afield to for instance Bristol RWA, to Bath the Holt and the Literary and Scientific Institution and in 1998 to Cork Street, London W1. By this time the group had adopted a twice yearly exhibition programme. Some past and some present members have exhibited at the RWA and the RA and members arrange their own exhibition programmes as well.
Artists303 continues to explore its peripatetic status and has been fortunate to have been accommodated many times at the Atkinson Gallery Millfield School Street, Rook Lane Chapel Frome, Black Swan Frome, ACE Arts Somerton and at The Meeting House Ilminster. 2009 saw our most adventurous event in a successful Open Exhibition at the Bath and West showground Art’s Pavilion. This event attracted a wide entry, a large audience, significant sales and offered large cash prizes.
In the summer of 2015, an exhibition at the Meeting House, Ilminster celebrated our 50th Anniversary.