DOI Heft:
No. 42 (September, 1896)
DOI Artikel:White, Gleeson: The national competition, South Kensington 1896
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17297#0252
National Competition: South Kensington
vitality, many frames of designs exhibited prove Henry Edgar Crocket (Holloway), deserve more
how valuable this branch of study must needs be notice than space permits.
to practical designers, and also that it is possible So much for the exhibition as it is. When, how-
to infuse distinct spirit into a branch of study that ever, we think of what it might have been ; then
the spectre of Red-tape, which had seemed to have
vanished, looms into sight again. As you inquire
why this man and that man are not placed, you
find that some arbitrary rule has excluded them,
not because their work was other than excellent,
but because a
South Kensing-
ton student did
exactly what a
provincial stu-
dent is allowed
to do, or vice
versa. If any
good were served
thereby, several
instances could
be given in de-
tail of some-
body's blunder-
ing—that somebody who in Government offices
has a knack of blundering, honestly possibly, even
praiseworthily, but all the same blundering.
Again, the sparse representation of several pro-
minent schools, and the absence of work by their
design for a lock, plate, and handle most notable pupils, looks as if the old grievance
by philip w. smith, Manchester had been perpetuated—namely, that in the pre-
liminary selection from the tens of thousands of
had become lifeless and dull by hackneyed repeti- works, which must needs be weeded out before the
tion of the older ideas of flattened flowers, which judges see them, that somebody (that impersonal
looked as if the herbarium and not Nature had in- powerful somebody again) had by reasons of his
spired the designer. A capital oil-paint-
ing of a head (846) by Archibald Cross
(South Kensington), same (287, 646,
647, 648) by Laura Johnson (Notting-
ham), marvellously good for a pupil
only seventeen, must not be forgotten.
A clever poster (629) by Frederick
Taylor (New Cross), the only example
of a popular subject; a good wall-
paper by Isabel McBean (621) (New
Cross), design (140) by Frank Georges
(Brighton), with most charming per-
ception of the beauty of subtle flowing
lines ; a design for wall-paper (808) by
Lewis C. Radcliffe, suggestive of Leon
Solon's work ; a medallion of a child's
head (315) by Edith Bell (South Ken-
sington) ; and a set of drawings for
decoration of a room (57), with sub-
jects from the Sleeping Beauty, by design for fire-dog by Herbert c. oakley, South Kensington
vitality, many frames of designs exhibited prove Henry Edgar Crocket (Holloway), deserve more
how valuable this branch of study must needs be notice than space permits.
to practical designers, and also that it is possible So much for the exhibition as it is. When, how-
to infuse distinct spirit into a branch of study that ever, we think of what it might have been ; then
the spectre of Red-tape, which had seemed to have
vanished, looms into sight again. As you inquire
why this man and that man are not placed, you
find that some arbitrary rule has excluded them,
not because their work was other than excellent,
but because a
South Kensing-
ton student did
exactly what a
provincial stu-
dent is allowed
to do, or vice
versa. If any
good were served
thereby, several
instances could
be given in de-
tail of some-
body's blunder-
ing—that somebody who in Government offices
has a knack of blundering, honestly possibly, even
praiseworthily, but all the same blundering.
Again, the sparse representation of several pro-
minent schools, and the absence of work by their
design for a lock, plate, and handle most notable pupils, looks as if the old grievance
by philip w. smith, Manchester had been perpetuated—namely, that in the pre-
liminary selection from the tens of thousands of
had become lifeless and dull by hackneyed repeti- works, which must needs be weeded out before the
tion of the older ideas of flattened flowers, which judges see them, that somebody (that impersonal
looked as if the herbarium and not Nature had in- powerful somebody again) had by reasons of his
spired the designer. A capital oil-paint-
ing of a head (846) by Archibald Cross
(South Kensington), same (287, 646,
647, 648) by Laura Johnson (Notting-
ham), marvellously good for a pupil
only seventeen, must not be forgotten.
A clever poster (629) by Frederick
Taylor (New Cross), the only example
of a popular subject; a good wall-
paper by Isabel McBean (621) (New
Cross), design (140) by Frank Georges
(Brighton), with most charming per-
ception of the beauty of subtle flowing
lines ; a design for wall-paper (808) by
Lewis C. Radcliffe, suggestive of Leon
Solon's work ; a medallion of a child's
head (315) by Edith Bell (South Ken-
sington) ; and a set of drawings for
decoration of a room (57), with sub-
jects from the Sleeping Beauty, by design for fire-dog by Herbert c. oakley, South Kensington