International studio (35.1908)

The National Competition, igo8



DESIGN FOR TAPESTRY HANGING
BY WILLIAM CLOWES (MACCLESFIELD)

maiden, wearing quaint robes of green and crimson
and pink, playing with peacocks on a terrace. The
girl recalls Pinwell; her surroundings
and the scheme of colour generally are
reminiscent in various ways of Rossetti,
of J. F. Lewis, and of old Persian
pictures. But there is much, too, in
this remarkable study, made for litho-
graphic reproduction, that is entirely
the artist’s own, and it was one of the
most interesting items in the exhibition.
Mr. John C. Moody, of the Polytechnic
(Regent Street), showed some vigorous
penwork in his drawing of fir trees on
high land over a river, and Mr. Frederick
C. Herrick, of Leicester (The Newarke),
sent some clever designs for colour
prints, including one of coursing hares
that is full of action and movement.
Admirable in sentiment is the etching
of trees by a riverside sent by Miss Nora
Adeline Fry, of Bristol (Queen’s Road).
It is not often that sketches of
figure compositions in charcoal have
gained gold medals in the National Art

Competition, but a medal of the highest
class is deservedly awarded this year to
the designs shown by Miss Violet E.
Hawkes, of Liverpool (see p. 277). Her
designs are sketches in the literal sense,
sketches in which the composition of the
light and shade and of the masses are the
things principally considered. In char-
coal they suggest some of the bigness
and dignity that distinguish the
sketches of Millet, but Miss Hawkes
failed to carry these qualities into the
completed painting of one of the sub-
jects that she showed side by side with
the sketch. On the opposite pole to
the broad charcoal of Miss Hawkes
was the careful design on vellum for
figure composition by Miss Doris
Taylor, of Newcastle-on-Tyne (Arm-
strong College), all in pure line, and
elaborated to the fullest extent of the
artist’s powers. Other designs from the
Newcastle School to which attention
may be drawn are those for illuminated
pages of Dante, by Miss Jessie Lamont
Armour, and for a triptych by Miss
Elizabeth Veronica Nisbet (see p. 275).
The triptych, with the Tree of Forgive-
ness in the centre panel, is carried out
in an attractive colour scheme of the palest and
most delicate hues.

DESIGN FOR D \MASK NAPKIN BY E. E. HOWCHIN (BELFAST)

279