kitchen-sink painters

Loose-knit group of British painters, active in the late 1940s and early 1950s. They depicted drab, everyday scenes with an aggressive technique and often brilliant, ‘crude’ colour. The best known were John Bratby, Derrick Greaves (1927- ), Edward Middleditch (1923-1987), and Jack Smith (1928- ).

These painters had something in common with the ‘Angry Young Men’ writers of the same time, and playwrights such as John Osborne are sometimes described as ‘kitchen sink dramatists’.