The Rye Society of Artists is a group of practising artists living and working within a 15-mile radius of Rye. The membership includes painters, sculptors, printmakers, ceramicists and, in more recent years, photographers. The Society's annual exhibition is held in the Boys Club building situated half-way up Mermaid Street and is a major attraction for summer visitors to Rye.

Many well-known artists have been closely associated with Rye, including Edward Burra, Paul Nash and John Piper, three of Britain's finest twentieth century painters. Burra lived in or around Rye all his life, and Nash lived in the town and nearby in Iden for a number of years. Piper painted a celebrated series of water-colours of the Marsh Churches.

The late 1940s saw a new influx of artists fired by the prevailing sense of renewal after World War II and in 1951 as the Festival of Britain was celebrating British creativity on the South Bank in London, a new talented group appeared in Rye. Calling themselves RX8 (a reference to local fishing boat registration), Geoffrey Bagley, Margaret Barnard, Leslie Davie, John Cole, Wally Cole, Michael Cammack, Michael Griffiths and Robert MacKechnie held an exhibition of their works in the Boys Club in Mermaid Street.

In 1952 a second exhibition was being planned when RX8 heard that a younger group of aspiring artists were putting together an exhibition to follow on immediately after their own show. It was agreed that the two groups should amalgamate under the banner of 'Rye Society of Artists' and the Society has been thriving ever since.

The Society's annual summer show has become a well established fixture in the Rye summer calendar and a major artistic event in East Sussex and Kent. Featuring an eclectic mix of Member's work, the exhibition also includes selection by open submission and contributions from a limited number of invited artists.