DOI issue:
Nr. 339 (August 1925)
DOI article:Comstock, Helen: Brangwyn's American show
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19985#0321
mceRnAcionAL
"in the docks" (water-color) by frank brangwyn, r.a.
bition, which was also the first to be held in this was so vigorous compared to its neighbors that it
country, lasted only a few weeks and the paintings was as though a whale had swum into a stream
were returned to London. While his water colors, filled with trout and perch. The phrase is hardly
etchings and drawings are to be met with easily, exaggerated. A Brangwyn is informed with life;
a truly representative exhibition of his oils is more its content is invariably rich, abundant, fecund;
difficult to manage for most of his paintings are the individual counts for little; humanity is of
murals and are in place in public buildings, while prime importance. He is a lover of crowds, not
his more important easel pictures are in perma- as a Toulouse-Lautrec would love them, for their
nent collections in museums all over the globe. individual types, like little glittering facets in the
Last year the painter was encouraged to assemble great sparkling whole of society, but he sees them
enough examples of his work for public showing almost impersonally, universally, as one who looks
and an exhibition was held for three months at on from a sufficient perspective at the great
the house of Mrs. Coutts-Michie at Queen's Gate. pageant of life and perceives only its color, its
Many of the paintings then shown were included movement, its big significances; the individual is
in the Boston group. All of the paintings repro- not so much belittled as seen simply as a part of
duced here were exhibited in Boylston Street. things. But if the individual is robbed of some of
The one that is reproduced in color, "King John his accustomed importance, he makes up for this
Signing the Magna Charta," is the original study seeming indignity by making landscape an ad-
for the big decoration at the Cleveland Court- junct to humanity; a Brangwyn landscape is
House. This painting, even in the reproduction, always eloquent of human associations, of human
gives some idea of the fact that Brangwyn is not endeavor; it is the stage setting for the drama of
alone a manipulator of brilliant color; he fills his life. Not only do his streets take on the character
pictures with light, which is another matter en- of those who have made them but even his wind-
tirely. Rich color is not necessarily identical with mills set in great windswept spaces speak of the
luminous color, but Brangwyn's ability to make lives that have passed their span within their
it so is more than half the secret of his unfailing shadow. Human activity is really his theme
vitality. A Brangwyn picture, in whatever group always—commerce, industry, pageantry, play—
it may hang, is sure to attract the eye. His chief all that joins humanity together in common
biographer, Walter Shaw-Sparrow, speaks of one relationship.
of his contributions to the Royal Academy which Frank Brangwyn was born in 1867 at Bruges
august 1925
three twenty-one
"in the docks" (water-color) by frank brangwyn, r.a.
bition, which was also the first to be held in this was so vigorous compared to its neighbors that it
country, lasted only a few weeks and the paintings was as though a whale had swum into a stream
were returned to London. While his water colors, filled with trout and perch. The phrase is hardly
etchings and drawings are to be met with easily, exaggerated. A Brangwyn is informed with life;
a truly representative exhibition of his oils is more its content is invariably rich, abundant, fecund;
difficult to manage for most of his paintings are the individual counts for little; humanity is of
murals and are in place in public buildings, while prime importance. He is a lover of crowds, not
his more important easel pictures are in perma- as a Toulouse-Lautrec would love them, for their
nent collections in museums all over the globe. individual types, like little glittering facets in the
Last year the painter was encouraged to assemble great sparkling whole of society, but he sees them
enough examples of his work for public showing almost impersonally, universally, as one who looks
and an exhibition was held for three months at on from a sufficient perspective at the great
the house of Mrs. Coutts-Michie at Queen's Gate. pageant of life and perceives only its color, its
Many of the paintings then shown were included movement, its big significances; the individual is
in the Boston group. All of the paintings repro- not so much belittled as seen simply as a part of
duced here were exhibited in Boylston Street. things. But if the individual is robbed of some of
The one that is reproduced in color, "King John his accustomed importance, he makes up for this
Signing the Magna Charta," is the original study seeming indignity by making landscape an ad-
for the big decoration at the Cleveland Court- junct to humanity; a Brangwyn landscape is
House. This painting, even in the reproduction, always eloquent of human associations, of human
gives some idea of the fact that Brangwyn is not endeavor; it is the stage setting for the drama of
alone a manipulator of brilliant color; he fills his life. Not only do his streets take on the character
pictures with light, which is another matter en- of those who have made them but even his wind-
tirely. Rich color is not necessarily identical with mills set in great windswept spaces speak of the
luminous color, but Brangwyn's ability to make lives that have passed their span within their
it so is more than half the secret of his unfailing shadow. Human activity is really his theme
vitality. A Brangwyn picture, in whatever group always—commerce, industry, pageantry, play—
it may hang, is sure to attract the eye. His chief all that joins humanity together in common
biographer, Walter Shaw-Sparrow, speaks of one relationship.
of his contributions to the Royal Academy which Frank Brangwyn was born in 1867 at Bruges
august 1925
three twenty-one