Started as the Sketch Club in 1883 by a group of male artists in Baltimore who "desired to draw and paint from life" (meaning nude models), the Charcoal Club was incorporated in 1885.
Joseph Evans Sperry, Alfred Winfield Strahan, and Lee Woodward Zeigler.
[3][4][5] The Club held exhibitions of local and national artists and its "annual juried exhibition of contemporary American art [was]...from 1911 to 1926...the high point of Baltimore's brief art season".
[6] The club was also known for its wild annual "Bal des Arts", and in the 1920s many New York City-based artist would attend.
[8] The club is known for a focus on traditional art techniques and realism.