DOI issue:
The International Studio (March, 1908)
DOI article:Brinton, Selwyn John Curwen: Emil Fuchs: some work in sculpture, medals and portraits
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28254#0373
Emil Fuchs
minster Abbey for the ceremony. After this, his
next work was the medal for Science, Art and
Music, which is conferred on men of achievement
as a mark of royal appreciation.
The medals for the Hispanic Society of America,
commissioned by Mr. Archer Huntington, are the
artist’s latest work in this field and show his freedom
and command within the limitations imposed by
the art. The play of fancy in a grouping of origi-
nality without sacrifice of grace distinguishes the
medal of merit, conferred as a token of merit in
service of the interests of the society (recently
come into general public view by the opening of
its Hispanic Museum). The membership medal,
struck off for presentation to members, shows that
facility in spacing and lighting, without which no
true medallist ever was, and that carrying of the
imagination into deft details, made possible by
our later ingenuities, which allow minuteness in an
oversized original.
I must now treat, very briefly, another side of our
artist’s work. Mr. Fuchs, in 1898, soon after his
arrival in London, joined the “Langham Club”
(known officially
as “The Artists’
Society”), which
he has since served
as president. This
club is essentially
a working club.
To those artists
whose interest in
art lies apart from
their immediate
profession, this
club, as Mr. Fuchs
says, affords one
of the best oppor-
tunities to be
found for devel-
oping that interest
by study, since it
takes nothing
from their hours
of day-work and
is yet open to them
through the whole
vear. In his work
at the Langham
Club, and at his
studio in Devon-
shire Street on
“off” days, Mr.
Fuchs began to
devote attention to the problems of color. The
South African War, which intervened and which
affected art as disastrously as it did other occupa-
tions, lost Mr. Fuchs several of his commissions in
sculpture. In 1900 he began his work in portraiture.
We note a distinct advance from the earlier
portraits to the later work, the charming study
Rosie, shown at the Munich Exposition, 1905; the
portrait of Mr. Wolf, the engraver, 1907; the free
technique of his Lady in Blue, shown at last
year’s Paris Salon; of his Mis. Randolph, or that
most charming portrait of Mrs. Benkard. Indeed,
it is to this last work that we come back with most
pleasure. The beauty of type will naturally attract
us here, but, technically, the gradation of the values
(the light being concentrated on the face and neck,
and descending through the low tones in the arms
and brow to the cool, shadowy grays of the bosom),
the clean bold handling of the drapery and sim-
plicity of the whole treatment point the way to Mr.
Fuchs’s development in the future, in strength of
drawing and modelling, in simplification of treat-
ment and cleanness of color.
- ■
SKETCH FOR HISPANIC SOCIETY ANNUAL MEDAL
BY EMIL FUCHS
VII
minster Abbey for the ceremony. After this, his
next work was the medal for Science, Art and
Music, which is conferred on men of achievement
as a mark of royal appreciation.
The medals for the Hispanic Society of America,
commissioned by Mr. Archer Huntington, are the
artist’s latest work in this field and show his freedom
and command within the limitations imposed by
the art. The play of fancy in a grouping of origi-
nality without sacrifice of grace distinguishes the
medal of merit, conferred as a token of merit in
service of the interests of the society (recently
come into general public view by the opening of
its Hispanic Museum). The membership medal,
struck off for presentation to members, shows that
facility in spacing and lighting, without which no
true medallist ever was, and that carrying of the
imagination into deft details, made possible by
our later ingenuities, which allow minuteness in an
oversized original.
I must now treat, very briefly, another side of our
artist’s work. Mr. Fuchs, in 1898, soon after his
arrival in London, joined the “Langham Club”
(known officially
as “The Artists’
Society”), which
he has since served
as president. This
club is essentially
a working club.
To those artists
whose interest in
art lies apart from
their immediate
profession, this
club, as Mr. Fuchs
says, affords one
of the best oppor-
tunities to be
found for devel-
oping that interest
by study, since it
takes nothing
from their hours
of day-work and
is yet open to them
through the whole
vear. In his work
at the Langham
Club, and at his
studio in Devon-
shire Street on
“off” days, Mr.
Fuchs began to
devote attention to the problems of color. The
South African War, which intervened and which
affected art as disastrously as it did other occupa-
tions, lost Mr. Fuchs several of his commissions in
sculpture. In 1900 he began his work in portraiture.
We note a distinct advance from the earlier
portraits to the later work, the charming study
Rosie, shown at the Munich Exposition, 1905; the
portrait of Mr. Wolf, the engraver, 1907; the free
technique of his Lady in Blue, shown at last
year’s Paris Salon; of his Mis. Randolph, or that
most charming portrait of Mrs. Benkard. Indeed,
it is to this last work that we come back with most
pleasure. The beauty of type will naturally attract
us here, but, technically, the gradation of the values
(the light being concentrated on the face and neck,
and descending through the low tones in the arms
and brow to the cool, shadowy grays of the bosom),
the clean bold handling of the drapery and sim-
plicity of the whole treatment point the way to Mr.
Fuchs’s development in the future, in strength of
drawing and modelling, in simplification of treat-
ment and cleanness of color.
- ■
SKETCH FOR HISPANIC SOCIETY ANNUAL MEDAL
BY EMIL FUCHS
VII