International studio (59.1916)

Studio-Talk

STUDIO-TALK

[From Our Own Correspondents.)

EDON.—Coloured plaster relief is not,
perhaps, so frequently used for the interior
adornment of buildings as its special
qualities entitle it to be, but a very
interesting series of wall decorations in this material
has been recently completed. This is the ballroom
at Messrs. Deller’s new restaurant at Exeter, and
the decorations are the joint work of Mr. Arthur
Glover, sculptor, and Mr. James Williams, painter.

the Landseer Scholarship in painting twice, the
British Institution Scholarship for three years, and
also gained the silver medals for “ The Decoration
of a Portion of a Public Building,” for “ Composi-
tion in Colour,” and for “ A Cartoon of a Draped
Figure.” As this record indicates, he has given
special attention to figure design and decoration.
With these illustrations we include a marble group
exhibited at the Royal Academy by Mr. Glover, who
as a student of sculpture was his contemporary at
the Academy Schools.

There are fourteen figure panels, arranged as a
frieze, and the artists have gone for their inspiration
to English poetry, from that earliest lyric “ Summer
is i-cumen in ” to Morris’s “ Eve of Crecy,” choos-
ing of course such poems as by their subject or

The appointment of Mr. Charles John Holmes
to fill the office of Director of the National
Gallery made vacant by the resignation of Sir
Charles Holroyd was announced towards the

sentiment adapt themselves for illus-
tration on the walls of a ball-room. The
panels are on all four walls, at a height
of ten feet from the floor, and have a
uniform depth of five feet. Each subject
is complete in itself, but the scheme of
colour, which is bright and rich, and
includes a certain amount of gold, binds
the whole frieze together in harmony.
The colours used in painting the finished
plaster casts were oil colours with a
special wax medium. The artistic
partnership which has produced the
work under notice has been a most
successful collaboration and a very real
one, for Mr. Williams and Mr. Glover
have worked together in the same studio
from the first inception of the scheme.
All the purely ornamental piasterwork in
the ball-room and adjoining restaurant,
apart from the coloured reliefs, is by
Mr. G. P. Bankart, and it was indeed
under his regis that the whole of the
decoration was carried out.

The decorative water-colour by Mr-
Williams entitled The Lament, which we
reproduce, is an interpretation of the
spirit of Shelley’s elegy on the death of
Keats—“ Adonais.” It was exhibited at
the Royal Academy as a pencil-drawing,
and has been shown also in its present
coloured state at the International
Society’s exhibition. Mr. Williams, after
having been trained under Mr. R. G.
Hatton at Newcastle-on-Tyne, pro-


ceeded to the Academy Schools, where
he had a successful career, holding

COLOURED PLASTER RELIEF PANEL FOR A BALLROOM AT EXETER
.BY ARTHUR GLOVER AND JAMES WILLIAMS

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