DOI article:
Baldry, Alfred Lys: The paintings of Arthur Hacker, R.A.
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43450#0194
Arthur Hacker, R.A.
of a busy street to express an artistic intention.
Among the men who have painted London Mr.
Hacker has already made for himself a place of
high distinction by the judgment with which he
has grasped the possibilities of familiar and every-
day scenes and by the skill with which he has
turned them to pictorial account. That he reckons
this branch of his practice as expressive of the
best qualities of his art seems to be implied by his
selection of one of his London pictures to represent
him in the Diploma Gallery at the Royal Academy
—he deposited his Wet Night, Piccadilly Circus,
as his diploma work when he was promoted to the
rank of Royal Academician, in 1910.
In noting the varieties of Mr. Hacker’s accom-
plishment and the many successes of his career, the
importance of his work as a portrait-painter must
by no means be overlooked. The list of notable
portraits for which he has been responsible is a
very long one, and it covers practically the whole
term of years during which he has been at work.
If he had done nothing else, indeed, he would still
rank among our more prominent artists, for in
portraiture he is a man of very definite mark. He
has a strong appreciation of character, and he has,
too, a sense of elegant arrangement which is always
excellently displayed in his paintings of feminine
sitters. The strength and grace of his portraits can
be sincerely commended, and in many of them
there is to be perceived, also—as in the admirable
painting of his mother—a rare sympathy with his
subject and a masterly reticence of statement which
carries the completest conviction. It is, in fact,
this combination of sympathy and reticence that
gives to all phases of his art their characteristic
atmosphere. Whatever may be the direction in
which he has turned for the moment, whatever
may be the Eesthetic experiment which he happens
to be working out, he never fails to bring into
operation the peculiarities of his own temperament
or to give full scope to the activity of his per-
sonality. That this personality is, in a sense, a
restless one is decidedly fortunate, for restlessness,
when it is directed, as it is in his case, by fine taste
and trained intelligence, makes for a valuable
variety of achievement, and produces results which
are wholly worthy of acceptance by the world of
art. A. L. B.
“A MATINEE AFTERNOON, PICCADILLY CIRCUS”
182
BY ARTHUR HACKER, R.A.
of a busy street to express an artistic intention.
Among the men who have painted London Mr.
Hacker has already made for himself a place of
high distinction by the judgment with which he
has grasped the possibilities of familiar and every-
day scenes and by the skill with which he has
turned them to pictorial account. That he reckons
this branch of his practice as expressive of the
best qualities of his art seems to be implied by his
selection of one of his London pictures to represent
him in the Diploma Gallery at the Royal Academy
—he deposited his Wet Night, Piccadilly Circus,
as his diploma work when he was promoted to the
rank of Royal Academician, in 1910.
In noting the varieties of Mr. Hacker’s accom-
plishment and the many successes of his career, the
importance of his work as a portrait-painter must
by no means be overlooked. The list of notable
portraits for which he has been responsible is a
very long one, and it covers practically the whole
term of years during which he has been at work.
If he had done nothing else, indeed, he would still
rank among our more prominent artists, for in
portraiture he is a man of very definite mark. He
has a strong appreciation of character, and he has,
too, a sense of elegant arrangement which is always
excellently displayed in his paintings of feminine
sitters. The strength and grace of his portraits can
be sincerely commended, and in many of them
there is to be perceived, also—as in the admirable
painting of his mother—a rare sympathy with his
subject and a masterly reticence of statement which
carries the completest conviction. It is, in fact,
this combination of sympathy and reticence that
gives to all phases of his art their characteristic
atmosphere. Whatever may be the direction in
which he has turned for the moment, whatever
may be the Eesthetic experiment which he happens
to be working out, he never fails to bring into
operation the peculiarities of his own temperament
or to give full scope to the activity of his per-
sonality. That this personality is, in a sense, a
restless one is decidedly fortunate, for restlessness,
when it is directed, as it is in his case, by fine taste
and trained intelligence, makes for a valuable
variety of achievement, and produces results which
are wholly worthy of acceptance by the world of
art. A. L. B.
“A MATINEE AFTERNOON, PICCADILLY CIRCUS”
182
BY ARTHUR HACKER, R.A.