The Society has been showing in Plymouth’s Artmill Gallery annually since 2008, that is apart from the one year when lockdown restrictions dictated an unavoidable break in continuity. Recent appointments to the membership have added to the diverse range of exhibits with three dimensional work featuring strongly in this year’s show.

In early 1944, under the guidance and enthusiasm of Lewis Duckett, Principal of the Plymouth School of Art, a group of artists met to discuss the proposal of mounting an exhibition in the City Art Gallery that coming autumn. Their work was to be shown under the title of the Plymouth Society of Artists the purpose of which was to encourage and foster a professional and progressive outlook in the fine arts of painting, sculpture and printmaking for the benefit of Plymouth and Plymothians. Membership was to be restricted to those living in the city, or with strong ties to it.

That aim, in itself, was simple but in the eight decades that have passed there have been many and varied interpretations given to it and, equally varied, the exhibits. There have been numerous changes that have taken place during this time most notably to be seen in the geographical spread of its practitioners, the greater majority of whom these days live well beyond the city limits.