The celebrations to mark the centenary of painter and composer Sir Hubert von Herkomer (1849 to 1914) continue at Bushey Museum as this weekend it unveils its new exhibition, Drawn from the Herkomer School.

Featuring drawings by Herkomer himself and pupils of the art school that he established in Bushey in 1883 and ran until 1904, the exhibition will run until September.

Herkomer regarded drawing as the nuts and bolts of an artist’s work. Drawing enabled the artist to explore ideas and develop compositions, to make a visual analysis of a subject or to record things of interest.

Prospective students at his art school, which was post-graduate, had to show proficiency in drawing before they were admitted.

It is telling that Lucy Kemp-Welch, later his most noteworthy student and who went on to run the school after Herkomer until it closed in 1926, was refused entry when she first applied and had to go away and take drawing lessons before she was finally admitted the following year.

Other students include the painters William Nicholson, George Harcourt, Amy Sawyer and Henry Justice Ford.

Once they were at the school, students had to show drawing proficiency in the preliminary class before they were admitted to the life class.

Students were also encouraged to make drawings in their spare time. Often they recorded local scenes and this has resulted in a remarkable record of Bushey before photography was freely available.

Except for some early drawings of the nude male figure, few of Herkomer’s drawings survive – but there are exceptions. Vincent van Gogh, who was working in London at the time, said that, of the English black and white artists, Herkomer was the best and he paid him the compliment of copying, in his own work, Herkomer’s study of two Chelsea Pensioners in the painting The Last Muster.

  • Drawn from the Herkomer School is at Bushey Museum, Rudolph Road, Bushey from Saturday, April 26 to Sunday, September 7, Thursday to Sunday, 11am to 4pm. Details: 020 8420 4057, busheymuseum.org