The Pioneer Group were a number of red-figure vase painters working in Kerameikos or the potters' quarter of Athens around the beginning of the 5th century BCE. Characterized by John Boardman

John Boardman (archaeologist)

Professor Sir John Boardman FBA is a classical art historian and archaeologist, "Britain's most distinguished historian of ancient Greek art." -Biography:...

 as perhaps the first conscious art movement

Art movement

An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time, or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years...

 in the western tradition, the group comprised the painters Euphronios

Euphronios

Euphronios was an ancient Greek vase painter and potter, active in Athens in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC. As part of the so-called "Pioneer Group,"...

, Euthymides

Euthymides

Euthymides was an ancient Athenian potter and painter of vases, primarily active between 515 and 500 BC. He was a member of the Greek art movement later to be known as "The Pioneers" for their exploration of the new decorative style known as red-figure pottery...

, Smikros

Smikros

Smikros was an ancient Greek vase painter who flourished in Athens from 510 until 500 BCE. He was active in the workshop of the Euphronios...

, Hypsias, the 'Dikaios Painter' and Phintias

Phintias (painter)

Phintias was an ancient Greek vase painter; along with Euphronios and Euthymides, he was one of the most important representatives of the Pioneer Group of Athenian red-figure vase painters. Ten works from the period between 525 and 510 BC bearing his signature survive: seven vase paintings and...

. We can credit John Beazley

John Beazley

Sir John Davidson Beazley was an English classical scholar.Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Beazley attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a close friend of the poet James Elroy Flecker. After graduating in 1907, Beazley was a student and tutor in Classics at Christ Church, and in 1925 he...

 with first identifying these artists as a coherent group, though no documentary evidence remains of them; everything we know about them consists of their work itself.

The pioneer group were not innovators of the red-figure technique but rather late adopters of the practice developed by such bilingual painters as Andokides

Andokides Painter

The Andokides painter was an ancient Athenian vase painter who was active from 530 to approximately 515 BCE. His work is unsigned; he is named after Andokides, the potter for whom he worked. He is believed to be the inventor of the red figure style of vase painting.-Beginnings of his art:The...

 and Psiax

Psiax

Psiax was an Attic vase painter of the transitional period between the black-figure and red-figure styles. His works date to circa 525 to 505 BC and comprise about 60 surviving vases, two of which bear his signature. Initially he was allocated the name Menon Painter by John Beazley...

. Coming some 10 years after the earliest work in the technique Euphronios's first works are thought to have been produced circa 520 BCE. As a group their work makes frequent reference to one another, often in a playful competitive spirit; Euthymides boasts on one of his signed pots "hos oudepote Euphronios" – "as never Euphronios" (Munich 2307). Their work is distinctive for its simple rendering of dress, bold handling of anatomy, experimental use of foreshortening and a thematic preference for representations of symposia.