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John Currie

Born in Staffordshire of Irish parents, Currie attended Newcastle-under-Lyme and Hanley Schools of Art and the Royal College of Art. After a working as a ceramic artist and a period of teaching in Bristol, he became an art inspector in Dublin before he moved to London in 1910. He gave up his teaching in order to enrol for the Slade School, where he formed numerous friendships with other young artists. Some of them, known as the Coster Gang, appear in Currie's 1912 painting Some Later Primitives and Mme. Tisceron (City Museum and Art Gallery at Stoke-on-Trent) which shows Currie, Gertler, Nevinson, Wadsworth and Allinson with the proprietor of their favourite haunt, the Petit Savoyard club in Soho.

In 1912 Currie exhibited with the Friday Club, and in the summer and winter exhibitions of the New English Art Club. He continued to exhibit with the Friday Club in 1913 and 1914. His first one-man exhibition was at the Chenil Gallery in July 1913 (he had exhibited there the previous year with John, Lees, Innes, Gertler, Wadsworth and Nevinson). Currie also exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1913, where he came to the notice of Edward Marsh, who took him under his wing. In 1914 his work was included in the Spring Exhibition of Leeds City Art Gallery, and he exhibited at the Whitechapel Art Gallery's Twentieth Century Art exhibition, and at the Chenil Gallery with John, Lees, and others.A further one-man exhibition was planned for the Chenil Gallery in October 1914, but at the beginning of the month Currie shot his mistress Dolly Henry and then turned the gun on himself. He died the following day.