DOI article:
Baldry, Alfred Lys: The paintings and drawings of Frank Mura
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43452#0018
Frank Mura
It would be possible, perhaps, to charge him
with an almost excessive reticence, for he has been
curiously shy of availing himself of the means by
which the generality of artists aim at securing
popular attention. He has exhibited comparatively
little and he has sent few of his works to those
public galleries which make the display of con-
temporary art their special business. But this
aloofness has not kept Mr. Mura from being
recognised by collectors as a man who counts, and
counts very definitely among our modern artists,
and it has not diminished the estimation in which
he is held by people who judge a work of art by its
own merits rather than by the popular view which
is taken of it. He has made his position without
the advertisement of exhibitions, and this position
is probably all the stronger for that reason; he has
succeeded, as an artist should, by sheer strength of
personality, and not by currying favour with the
world which regards art as an amusement rather
than a subject for serious study.
Indeed, there is this to be said for Mr. Mura’s
avoidance of exhibitions, that he has escaped the
temptation to modify his view of art to please a
popular demand. The habit of painting for ex-
hibitions has only too often a very marked effect
upon the quality of an artist’s production, and it is
only the very strong man with an unusual sincerity
of conviction and more than ordinary force of
character who can withstand what can be termed
the exhibition influence. Even the strong man,
who is sufficiently sure of himself to refuse to alter
his artistic standpoint or to change his methods so
as to make them more pleasing to the crowd, may
in one of his weaker moments pause to consider
the effect of an exhibition on his work and stoop
to a coarsening of his art with the idea that thereby
he will enable it to hold its own better in the-
hurly-burly of a discordant show.
Mr. Mura’s allegiance to the greater principles of
pictorial practice has, however, never been shaken
by any considerations of this sort. The work he
has exhibited, when he has made his occasional
appearances in public, has been done to satisfy his
own fastidious preferences for a particular type of
picture production, and not to overpower by its
assertiveness of manner its not less assertive neigh-
bours on the gallery walls. Therefore he has not
lost any of his refinement of method, and he has
not diminished that vigorous independence of out-
look which is, and always has been, one of his
happiest qualities as a painter. He gives us art in
which he believes himself, art that with all its
restraint and sobriety, its delicacy and elusive
charm, is convinced, direct and spontaneous, and
entirely significant in its masculine clearness of
purpose. He gives us, in fact, the best that he
can do, and this best is so excellent that no one
“ L’ABREUVOIR, ABBEVILLE
6
FROM THE OIL TAINTING BY FRANK MURA
It would be possible, perhaps, to charge him
with an almost excessive reticence, for he has been
curiously shy of availing himself of the means by
which the generality of artists aim at securing
popular attention. He has exhibited comparatively
little and he has sent few of his works to those
public galleries which make the display of con-
temporary art their special business. But this
aloofness has not kept Mr. Mura from being
recognised by collectors as a man who counts, and
counts very definitely among our modern artists,
and it has not diminished the estimation in which
he is held by people who judge a work of art by its
own merits rather than by the popular view which
is taken of it. He has made his position without
the advertisement of exhibitions, and this position
is probably all the stronger for that reason; he has
succeeded, as an artist should, by sheer strength of
personality, and not by currying favour with the
world which regards art as an amusement rather
than a subject for serious study.
Indeed, there is this to be said for Mr. Mura’s
avoidance of exhibitions, that he has escaped the
temptation to modify his view of art to please a
popular demand. The habit of painting for ex-
hibitions has only too often a very marked effect
upon the quality of an artist’s production, and it is
only the very strong man with an unusual sincerity
of conviction and more than ordinary force of
character who can withstand what can be termed
the exhibition influence. Even the strong man,
who is sufficiently sure of himself to refuse to alter
his artistic standpoint or to change his methods so
as to make them more pleasing to the crowd, may
in one of his weaker moments pause to consider
the effect of an exhibition on his work and stoop
to a coarsening of his art with the idea that thereby
he will enable it to hold its own better in the-
hurly-burly of a discordant show.
Mr. Mura’s allegiance to the greater principles of
pictorial practice has, however, never been shaken
by any considerations of this sort. The work he
has exhibited, when he has made his occasional
appearances in public, has been done to satisfy his
own fastidious preferences for a particular type of
picture production, and not to overpower by its
assertiveness of manner its not less assertive neigh-
bours on the gallery walls. Therefore he has not
lost any of his refinement of method, and he has
not diminished that vigorous independence of out-
look which is, and always has been, one of his
happiest qualities as a painter. He gives us art in
which he believes himself, art that with all its
restraint and sobriety, its delicacy and elusive
charm, is convinced, direct and spontaneous, and
entirely significant in its masculine clearness of
purpose. He gives us, in fact, the best that he
can do, and this best is so excellent that no one
“ L’ABREUVOIR, ABBEVILLE
6
FROM THE OIL TAINTING BY FRANK MURA