International studio (56.1915)

Oswald Birley, R.O.I.

for the large, the very large number of portraits he
has signed. Rapid work is not, however, necessarily
scamped work, and his painting bears evidence of
very much more than a merely superficial study
of his subject. One feels that the study of the
personalities with whom his profession as portrait-
painter brings him in contact interests him exceed-
ingly ; but he keeps always before him a sense of his
obligations towards the sitter, the necessity and the
duty of preserving the strictest fidelity to his con-
ception of the individual, of not permitting the por-
trait to lapse into being a secondary element in an
artistic scheme whereby it is conceivable that a
finer, a more interesting picture, but not a better
portrait might, upon occasions, be the result.
It requires character to comprehend character,
and individuality to appreciate and depict in-
dividuality. The painter of portraits corresponds
to the biographer in litera¬
ture, not to the novelist or
essayist; and the greater
the biographer and the
finer his character, the
more valuable will be his
conception of his subject,
the more interesting, the
more subtle and the more
profound his analysis. In
the ceuvre of the artist
under discussion the most
interesting characterisa¬
tions, to me personally, are
to be found in his admirably
virile portraits of men—in
such works as the Arthur
Wagg, Esq., shown at the
Royal Academy in 1913 ;
the Hon. Henry Portman,
shown on the same occa¬
sion, in which is exempli¬
fied in a striking manner
the artist’s ability in the
rendering of modern male
costume—not an easy
problem but one which, in
this particular work, has
been handled most success¬
fully. Other works of in¬
terest that should be
referred to in this con¬
nection are Codrington
Crawshay, in hunting kit,
shown at the Royal Scottish
Academy in 1911; the

portrait of Sir Alfred Mond in last year’s Royal
Academy, where was also to be seen the portrait,
badly skied unfortunately, of Lord Reading, the
Lord Chief Justice. Among numerous other male
portraits of interest Oswald Birley has signed an
admirable work, John Ross (International Society,
1913); Colonel Lynes (Modern Society of Portrait
Painters, 1913); Colonel Spottiswoode; Sir Ralph
Anstruther; and the excellent T. E. A. Buchan-
Hepburn, Esq., which last three we illustrate.
Of the portraits of women, a very beautiful and
charming piece of painting is that of an old lady
Mrs. Russell Martineau (Modern Society of
Portrait Painters); another work to be remembered
is that by which the artist was represented at the
Venice Exhibition, 1912, Mrs. Prescott Decie, a
three-quarter length in an agreeably decorative
modern costume ; and the portrait of Mrs. Alick


“ MONTAGUE ROBB, ESQ.” (R.A. I9I5) BY OSWALD BIRLEY

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