[2] As well the formation of the new Society was a protest against what they considered to be the cramping effect of the old unchanging tradition that photographic realism was the essential of good art[3] and a desire to limit the membership to more professional painters.

[5] Sydney Ure Smith was President of the Society from 1921 to 1948 and during this time he encouraged new members and advocated measured progress in Australian art.

[13] The Society's publications included annual exhibition catalogues and books such as Amy Lambert's Thirty Years of an Artist's Life, a book about her husband (George Washington Lambert) and his career, and the Anzac Memorial Building N.S.W about the sculptures by Rayner Hoff in the ANZAC War Memorial in Sydney.

It must be remembered that a good artist puts on canvas only what he has thought about deeply and unceasingly both as to content and technique and especially as to significance in the world of life and nature.

The merit of all those elected to the Society has been always an individuality of approach and expression, content being subordinate to the thought.The first exhibition by the Society was held in 1895 and included works by some Australia's best artists of the time[3] including: Julian Ashton, Margaret Fleming, Frank P. Mahony, Emily Meston, Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton.

[17] Other 19th century exhibitors were Howard Ashton, W. F. Hughes, C. Lloyd Jones, G. W. Lambert, Sid Long, Edith Loudon, Mildred Rivett, A. Dattilo Rubbo, Hall Thorpe and J. S. Watkins[18] The Society of Artists organised annual exhibitions at which members could sell their works.