The more our art is serious, the more it will tend to avoid the drawing-room and stick to the kitchen' (W.R. Sickert, 'Idealism', Art News, 12th May 1910).`…the kitchen has a hallowed place in the history of art…The marmites of Chardin, the flayed chickens of Soutine, the eggs and frying pans of William Scott, are all part and parcel of the great mythology of European art' (Anonymous review, 'Paintings for the Kitchen', Art News & Review, 12th December 1953, Vol.5, no.23, p.2).

In an article written for the magazine Encounter in 1954, the critic David Sylvester unwittingly gave the 'Kitchen Sink' label to the four painters also often grouped together as the 'Beaux Arts Quartet'; John Bratby, Derrick Greav...