International studio (60.1916/1917)

Studio-Talk


STAINED WOOD MIRROR FRAME BY J. A. LABROUSSE

STUDIO-TALK
(From Our Own Correspondents.)

El DON.—At the Fifty-sixth exhibition of
the New English Art Club now being
held at the Galleries of the Royal Society
of British Artists in Suffolk Street the
landscape painters provide the subject-matter of
chief interest, and though perhaps there is not a
great deal in this direction that calls for attention
as particularly remarkable, the predominance of
work which proclaims an intimate intercourse with
nature is by no means unwelcome under present
circumstances. Mr. Wilson Steer has sent four
canvases in which he has effectively dealt with
problems of dissimilar kinds. In the largest, The
Vale of Gloucester, the colour is somewhat monoto-
nous and the interest centres in the subtle grada-
tion of atmospheric tone in a far-receding stretch
of country; in The Terrace Walk and Scene in a
Park his palette has a larger range with agreeable
results, and in the plein-air study of an ancient
stronghold, Chirk Castle, atmosphere is again ably

handled. Mr. Lucien Pissarro’s contribution com-
prises no less than ten subjects—four oils and
half-a-dozen of those little drawings in which his
refined sensibility is so eloquently expressed : and
Mr. Rich, too, makes a good showing with an
almost equal number. Mr. David Muirhead, again,
is not far behind, and besides landscapes he has
a figure-painting, Girl with a Book, which amply
attests his versatility. Mr. C. J. Holmes and his
coadjutor at the National Gallery both add strength
to the show, the former with his excellent Gravel
Pit and the Rainbow, and the latter with two capital
studies of mountain landscape, Rhydygarnedd and
Diphwys. Prof. Brown, Mr. C. M. Gere, Mr.
Bellingham-Smith and Mr. D. S. MacColl are seen
to advantage in their diverse interpretations of
landscape, and some little drawings by Mr. Joseph
Southall should certainly be included among the
things of more than passing interest. Portraits are
not numerous on this occasion, and among the
best things in this category are Mr. McEvoy’s The
Artist's Mother and Mrs. Swynnerton’s Henry
James, O.M. Mr. John’s Lord Fisher lacks the
geniality of expression which we find in Mr. Francis
Dodd’s pencil study in another room. Other por-
traits of note are Mr. Dodd’s C. P. Scott, Esq.,
Mr. J. B. Manson’s Lucien Pissarro, and Mr.
Lambert’s Capt. R. D. Simpson. Mr. Lambert has
also a clever pencil-portrait of Sergt. George Coates
in the room containing drawings of various kinds,
where also, as usual, much good work is to be
seen, including three pen-studies of olive-trees by
Joseph Champcommunal, a talented French artist
whose work has already appeared in these pages
and who, alas! is now numbered among those who
have laid down their lives for their country.
At the Fine Art Society’s galleries, apart from
a large collection of drawings of Belgian towns
and war lithographs by Mr. Frank Brangwyn,
many of which have been made familiar by pub-
lication in various ways, the chief attraction was
a group of pictures of Majorca by Lieut. Stuart
Boyd, who joined the Army immediately on the
outbreak of war and died early in October last
from wounds received when leading into action
a company of the Sherwood Foresters a few days
before. Mr. Boyd was twenty-nine at the time of
his death and studied at the Slade School, where
he held two Scholarships. Before the war he
exhibited at the Royal Academy, the New English
Art Club, the National Portrait Society and other
exhibitions. In these pictures of Majorca, where
he was in the habit of spending many months
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