Rudolph Ihlee

Rudolph Ihlee was born in London in 1883. In 1906 he went to the Slade School of Fine Art. He made friends with a group of very talented students. This included C.R.W. Nevinson, Stanley Spencer, John S. Currie, Mark Gertler, Maxwell Gordon Lightfoot, Adrian Allinson and Edward Wadsworth.

This group became known as the Coster Gang. According to David Boyd Haycock this was "because they mostly wore black jerseys, scarlet mufflers and black caps or hats like the costermongers who sold fruit and vegetables from carts in the street".

C.R.W. Nevinson argued in his autobiography, Paint and Prejudice (1937) commented that the Slade "was full with a crowd of men such as I have never seen before or since. One of their teachers, Henry Tonks, recognised their talent but found them too rebellious and later commented: "What a brood I have raised."

Ihlee left Slade School of Fine Art in 1910 and had two solo exhibitions at the Carfax Gallery in 1914 and became a member of New English Art Club in 1919. After the First World War Ihlee settled in Collioure. In 1926 he had a solo show at Chenil Galleries.

Rudolph Ihlee died in 1968.