Studio: international art (25.1902)

Frank Short, R.E.

precept and example, the craft of the interpreting
engraver—the medium of interpretation, in Frank
Short's own case, being invariably Mezzotint—but it
is not reasonable that in the affluence and the excel-
lence of his performance, as interpreter of another's
vision, there should be overlooked his own artistic
individuality as a creator, of original things. And
I want, in these brief comments, to insist upon his
double position—to note something at least of the
success which others have helped him to—which
others have made possible, but could not actually
achieve for him—and to note once more the artistic
importance of his performance "off his own bat."

And first, his original work—work which has
never fallen unheeded or unesteemed by the
expert, by the connoisseur, by the person busily
and appropriately occupied with the things of Art
in our day ; but work, nevertheless, which appealed
but little to popular taste, and work, moreover,
which the big public—that within my experience
has never rushed with uncontrollable eagerness to
the exhibitions of the Royal Society of Painter-
Etchers—has had scarcely at all before its eyes.

It will surprise the casual gazer at contemporary
prints, to be told that something like a hundred and
forty plates—etchings and dry-points, as I under-

stand, alone: not counting the performances
in other mediums—have been wrought by Mr.
Frank Short. Little less than twenty years have
elapsed since the first of them was produced,
timidly. It is none too early, then, for every per-
son who professes interest in prints to take account
of them, for Mr. Short—like Dante on an occasion
that has become historic—is now, as to the number
of his years, "midway in the journey of our life."
A hundred and forty plates, then. Seeing the
slightness of some of these, it may not, after all, seem
to be many, if we expect they shall have filled out
his days. But his days have had other claims. And
the performance of interpretation, which he has
wrought to such a pitch of excellence, has made its
demand on his time—it has had to be painfully
prepared for, laboriously studied. All the more
credit, then, to Mr. Short, that, notwithstanding the
responsibilities and inducements, and fascinations,
even, of such work—for there is scarcely anything
in the way of interpretation to which Mr. Short has
addressed himself that he has not tackled con
amore—it is all the more to his credit, I say, that
under such circumstances, his energy has been
equal to the creation of these original things It
is probable that his original work has, in variety as