Norwich Twenty Group (N20G) is staging one of the city’s largest art exhibitions. Art Sans Frontières Trois, featuring more than 230 works, opens on Monday, September 15 at the old Bally Shoe Factory, Hall Road, courtesy of Targetfollow Group.

The exhibition includes items from 60 of Norfolk’s best artists and contributions from N20G’s sister art groups in Norwich’s twin cities of Rouen, Novi Sad and Koblenz.

Guest Artist – It has become usual for the Norwich Twenty Group to invite a guest artist to join the exhibition. This year the Norwich 20 Group are delighted and highly honoured to announce that Brian Whelan has accepted their invitation and will be showing some of his most recent work as part of the show. Brian has chosen as his theme ‘A Table of Welcome’ as a gesture to the guest artists from Rouen, Novi Sad and Koblenz and the overall theme of Arts Sans Frontières Trois.

The exhibition is open daily, 10am to 5pm, from Monday, September 15 to Saturday, September 27. Admission is free. The art on show is wide ranging, from traditional figurative painting to abstract painting, sculpture, stone carving and imaginative site installations responding to the space of the old factory. An ‘End of Show Celebration Party’ will be held on Friday, September 26 from 7pm, all are welcome.

As well as the exhibition of large works, there will be an opportunity to pick up many small items in the Art Bazaar. All Art Bazaar items are donated by N20G members to raise money for the group and are sold for £15.

N20G artists, Ruthli Losh Atkinson, Geoffrey Lefever, Derek Rae, Dorothy Ransome, Stuart Shearer, Anne-Mari Stevens, John Tucket and Barry Watkins are currently featured in an exhibition at the Gallery Voyvodanska Banka, Novi Sad. Dorothy Ransome has contributed paintings to the exhibition that she created in Yugoslavia in 1948, when she was a member of the English Brigade of Students.

Members of the Twenty Group review the Final Degree Show at Norwich School of Art and Design each year and invite three young artists of exceptional talent to join the group as ‘licentiates’. This means they become members of the group for one year free of charge and are qualified to take part in exhibitions. This year’s artists are Kazumi Hyodo, Samuel Halstead and Linda Chapman.

N20G was formed in 1944 comprising mainly professional artists from the Norwich School of Art and Design. The group is no longer limited to 20 and now has more than 60 members, several of whom exhibit regularly in the West End and abroad. All aspects of the practice of contemporary fine art are represented.

Over the years the membership has included nationally known artists, for example, Michael Andrews, Bernard Reynolds and Jeffrey Camp. Colin Self has taken an active role as have numerous art historians and architects. Mary Newcomb, one of Britain’s best loved artists, famous for her visionary ruralist paintings, who died in Suffolk recently, was a member of N20G for many years. Her work often sold at exhibitions for around £20. It now changes hands for five figure sums.

The Group stages two exhibitions a year, one in the early summer and the other in September.