DOI Heft:
No. 124 (July, 1903)
DOI Artikel:Vallance, Aymer: Mr. W. J. Neatby and his work
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19879#0130
W. J. Neatby
MR. W. J. NEATBY AND HIS
WORK. BY AYMER VAL-
LANCE.
However individual a man's gift of imagina-
tion, however great his manipulative skill may be by
nature, early training and associations cannot fail
to have left their mark upon him for better or worse,
and to have contributed to the formation of his
matured work. It is, therefore, not only interesting
but profitable, for the better appreciation of an
artist, to recall the main points in his career.
No sooner had he left school than Mr. Neatby,
at that time only a boy of fifteen years, was articled
to an architect in a northern provincial town.
There he remained, as pupil and afterwards as clerk
of the works, altogether six years. During that
period, if nothing remarkable occurred to break
the monotony of ordinary routine work, Mr. Neatby
was steadily and diligently acquiring that training
and experience which have proved of vast service
to him in after life.
From the first the young man's taste inclined
him toward the study of monumental art, oppor-
tunities whereof he found in the surrounding
churches of the East Riding of Yorkshire. Many
of them, especially in outlying districts removed
from the beaten track, had still, at that date,
happily not been subjected to the obliterating hand
of the " restorer."
Two years longer, after leaving the office at
which he was originally articled, Mr. Neatby
followed his architectural profession, at Whitby
and other places in Yorkshire; and however little
scope for decoration was afforded by many of the
tasks in which he had to engage, such as the
designing of engine beds and the ironwork for a
large mill-roof, the discipline of being brought
face to face with problems of matter-of-fact en-
gineering, sheer and simple, forced him to attain
a habitual sense of anatomical construction on
the one hand, and of the capacity and fitness
of material on the other, factors which are never
absent even from his most elaborately ornamental
compositions.
At the age of twenty-three Mr. Neatby entered
upon a new phase. He took service in the Burman-
tofts Potteries at Leeds, as designer of tiles for
INTERIOR AND FURNITURE OF A STUDIO
BY W. J. NEATBY
"3
MR. W. J. NEATBY AND HIS
WORK. BY AYMER VAL-
LANCE.
However individual a man's gift of imagina-
tion, however great his manipulative skill may be by
nature, early training and associations cannot fail
to have left their mark upon him for better or worse,
and to have contributed to the formation of his
matured work. It is, therefore, not only interesting
but profitable, for the better appreciation of an
artist, to recall the main points in his career.
No sooner had he left school than Mr. Neatby,
at that time only a boy of fifteen years, was articled
to an architect in a northern provincial town.
There he remained, as pupil and afterwards as clerk
of the works, altogether six years. During that
period, if nothing remarkable occurred to break
the monotony of ordinary routine work, Mr. Neatby
was steadily and diligently acquiring that training
and experience which have proved of vast service
to him in after life.
From the first the young man's taste inclined
him toward the study of monumental art, oppor-
tunities whereof he found in the surrounding
churches of the East Riding of Yorkshire. Many
of them, especially in outlying districts removed
from the beaten track, had still, at that date,
happily not been subjected to the obliterating hand
of the " restorer."
Two years longer, after leaving the office at
which he was originally articled, Mr. Neatby
followed his architectural profession, at Whitby
and other places in Yorkshire; and however little
scope for decoration was afforded by many of the
tasks in which he had to engage, such as the
designing of engine beds and the ironwork for a
large mill-roof, the discipline of being brought
face to face with problems of matter-of-fact en-
gineering, sheer and simple, forced him to attain
a habitual sense of anatomical construction on
the one hand, and of the capacity and fitness
of material on the other, factors which are never
absent even from his most elaborately ornamental
compositions.
At the age of twenty-three Mr. Neatby entered
upon a new phase. He took service in the Burman-
tofts Potteries at Leeds, as designer of tiles for
INTERIOR AND FURNITURE OF A STUDIO
BY W. J. NEATBY
"3