Charles Genge was born in 1874, and he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris. Genge is considered a leader of the British Post Impressionists, and in his early years, the artistic foundation was laid for the rest of Genge’s career, as an artist who rejected academic traditions and believed that art should be available to all. Charles Genge was a dedicated teacher and one of the founders of Bethnal Green Working Men’s Institute, where he offered tuition until 1925. During his earlier career, his works were exhibited at Goupils, the Royal Society of British Artists, the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and the New English Art Club. And in 1927, Genge was appointed Curator at the RA Schools.

Genge’s success is due partly because his work displayed a real understanding of the power of colour and mark-making in the French artists – the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, the Fauves and the Cubists – whose work was still very influential in Britain. And also because his works were also infused with a love of the everyday life of the countryside and the suburbs, which he painted in both England and France. Through his paintings, he demonstrated spontaneity and enthusiasm for the plein-air technique of painting, with bold applications of paint laid on paint and the use of dense stripes of colour. His works are distinguished by the excitement, brilliance, and beauty of the ordinary and familiar, British or French landscape scenes. This ability to combine a radical technique with these familiar scenes is what ensured that Genge’s work appealed to many.

In 1930, his works were shown in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, next to many other interesting artists, from Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry to Emily Beatrice Bland, David Bomberg, Muirhead Bone, and Jacob Epstein. Genge died in 1958, and although he had instructed his nephew, William Genge, to clear his studio and burn his paintings upon his passing, instead Genge’s paintings were stored and left hidden for many years. And eventually, the entire studio collection was handed over to Campbell's of Walton Street Ltd., in Knightsbridge, to offer them to the public. From there, the first major exhibition of Genge’s work was in June 1985, which had great success. And subsequently, his works were included in other exhibitions throughout the 1980s, and the following decade. In 1997, a small number of watercolours on paper were exhibited and sold in New York. The remaining paintings by Charles Genge were bequeathed to Campbell’s, after William Genge’s death in 2002.