International studio (52.1914)

The Senefelder Club

amongst them. In the British and South Ken-
sington Museum collections under the present able
keepers of the departments of prints; in German,
French and Italian Galleries; and in the great
collection in the Library of Congress at Washington
the best modern examples of the revival of litho-
graphy are being gathered together. And there are
dealers now who show the works of living men,
and who are proving that lithography is as vital, as
personal a form of art as etching or engraving.
It was to break away from the professional
printer, to educate the critic, to help the collector,
to win the support of the dealer—and above all to
do the best work we could—and, as our rules say,
to “ encourage artistic lithography,” that the Sene-
felder Club was started at a meeting called some
five years ago in the studio of J. Kerr-Lawson. A
little group of four men soon got together and
founded the club—A. S. Hartrick, F. Ernest
Jackson, J. Kerr-Lawson, and myself. We took a
studio, bought a press and hired a printer. We
would not only print our own designs, but for a
consideration those of embryo lithographers, who
would hang about the door, waiting their turn to
use the press, there would soon be more presses
and copperplate presses, and finally wealth beyond
the dreams of Matisse and all his backers and it
should all come out of the Senefelder Club. But
before all this came to pass the proprietor of the
studio wanted it for a kindergarten. The press
was taken over by one of the four as a bad debt,
the printer vanished, and so did all this part of our
programme. We broke in the door of the pro-
fessional printer, or bought presses. Mr. Marchant
became our agent, and we added members to our
little society. In the five years of our history we
have seen artistic lithography again restored to its
right rank among the fine arts ; we have succeeded
in adding to our membership such practising
artists as Anthony Barker, H. Becker, F. Brangwyn,
John Copley, Miss Gabain, John McLure Hamilton,
Miss Hope, Spencer Pryse, D. A. Wehrschmidt, in
fact all the artist lithographers of Great Britain who
have made a name for themselves, save Rothen-
stein, Shannon and Sullivan, and we hope ere long
they will be amongst us as they are with us. The
directors and keepers of the Luxembourg, the Print
Rooms of the British and Victoria and Albert
Museums and of the Library of Congress have be-
come honorary members, and we have a lay member-
ship of over one hundred. We have a home at the
gallery of Goupil and Co. in London, where our
fifth exhibition has just been held. We have given
forty-five exhibitions in the Provinces, on the Con-
6

tinent, and in the United States, and several in
London. As a Society, we have exhibited in
almost all the great national and international ex-
hibitions, on several occasions representing this
country. And we have found a practical printer
whose pleasure and pride it is to help us in our
experiments and let us work freely in his shop.
We feel that to have accomplished these things
in five years is something to be proud of. But we
are proudest of the fact that, through the Club, we
have in this country helped to bring about the
revival of artistic lithography. Another great factor
in our favour has been the recent developments in
technique and mechanism, developments which will
bring the artist again in touch with it. Lithography
languished for years because the original artist was
forced out of the art by the professional litho-
artist, a copyist usually skilled in the highest
degree, capable of anything but making a work of
art, though some distinguished artists were trained
as lithographers. Then it was taken up by com-
merce and that came near killing it, and another
blow was struck by wood engraving, for a litho-
graph until yesterday could not be printed with
type as a wood or process block can, and in an age
when every “work of art” is founded on'cheapness
and hustle, lithography was out of it. Within a few
months all this has been changed. Not only can
a lithograph now be printed on an ordinary press
with type, but the photographer, the curse of
modernity, and the engraver, usually no better, have
been completely eliminated, and in a short while
the artist’s lithograph will, as an illustration, be given
straight into the reader’s hands. Whether he will
have the sense to appreciate it, doesn’t so much
matter, but all artists will, and this will cause the
greatest revival of artistic lithography and it will
come about in the immediate future. Other causes
for the revival are the improvements in transfer
paper, and the wonderful discovery of the method
of transferring—but at the same time preserving—
the artist’s drawings. Senefelder speaks of this, but
it has only been practised within the last few years.
Still now we can say, in the words of Senefelder
our patron, with which he closed his invaluable
book: “The Complete Course of Lithography”
(1819), “I desire it [lithography] may spread over
the whole world bringing much good to humanity
through many excellent productions, and that it
may work toward man’s greater culture, but that it
may never be used for evil purposes. This grant
the Almighty. Then may the hour be blessed in
which I created it.” Joseph Pennell
(President, Senefelder Club).