International studio (31.1907)

National Academy Exhibition


Copyright, 1905, by Chas. Scribner's Sons

TAIL-PIECE ILLUSTRATION EOR “BLACK CARE
AND THE HORSEMAN”
BY MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN ANDREWS, SCRIBNER’S MAGAZINE

BY WALTER
APPLETON
CLARK

tremendous possibilities of growth—power to draw,
insight in composition and delicacy of imagination
combined with strength.” Nor is it too much to
say that in most of the several manifestations of his
art, maturity was attained.
The eighty-second annual
EXHIBITION OF THE NATION-
AL ACADEMY OF DESIGN
BY GUSTAV KOBBE
Six hundred pictures were accepted for the
eighty-second annual exhibition of the National
Academy of Design, which opened in the American
Fine Arts Galleries on Saturday, March 16, being,1
as usual, preceded by a “varnishing day,” which
now amounts simply to a reception and private
view.
Of these six hundred paintings, actually accepted,
it became necessary to return two hundred for lack
of hanging room. Year after year the lack of
gallery space in New York becomes more and more
deplorable, not to say scandalous. Compared with
its wealth and size, New York as a picture-showing
community is on a par with some provincial town.
And yet it is the art centre of the United States.
As for the exhibition itself, the general aspect is

cheerful. There is rather a conspicuous lack of
strong pictures, a lack which the very choice of the
picture that hangs in the place of honour, on the
further wall of the Vanderbilt gallery, seems to
emphasise. Mr. Sergeant Kendall’s An Inter-
lude charms by its graceful expression of senti-
ment. Charm, indeed, rather than strength,
bright, cheerful colours, rather than the delicate
“pastel” tones, seem to have been what the jury
of selection has aimed at and attained. “ Keyed
high” was the expression a member of the jury
used in describing the general result, and there are
enough pictures fitted by this term to justify it.
Mr. Kendall’s canvas is found to be one of his
mother and child subjects, which he handles so
differently from George De Forest Brush, for
example, Mr. Brush showing the pathos of motherly
love, Mr. Kendall the tender joy thereof. In this
picture the colour scheme is formed by the soft,
pinkish grey material worn by the woman and by
the child’s white dress. The woman is seated.
Her head is partly averted toward the child, the 1
coiffe is simple, an oblong book lies open on her
lap; the child stands beside her. The composition
is unstrained and effective. The affectionate rela-
tionship between the mother and the child is
charmingly indicated. The canvas is delightful.

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