The Group was an informal association set up in 1927 by former students of the Canterbury College of Art, allowing them to exhibit more challenging modernist works than would be accepted for the established Canterbury Society of Arts annual show. The Group had a yearly display, which became an important outlet for the young creative artists who emerged in Christchurch in the 1930s and 1940s. Artists in the 1948 show included Colin McCahon, Toss Woollaston, Juliet Peter, Leo Bensemann, Eric Lee-Johnson, Bill Sutton, Russell Clark and Doris Lusk. The catalogue was printed by Denis Glover's Caxton Press. The Group and Caxton Press were among a number of Christchurch institutions which provided a home for radical intellectuals at the time, along with the Christchurch Co-operative Book Society and, until 1940, Tomorrow magazine.