Studio: international art (30.1904)

Lewis Baumer

of a pretty child ; a cursory experiment in trying
the effect of delicate touches of colour on a chalk
drawing, and scarcely before the artist realised it
there had opened up for him a fresh and altogether
enchanting field for his labours. When he put
away his working materials that afternoon, it was
with the happy consciousness that his art held a
great deal more for him than it had ever held
before.

" veronica"

This was less than a year ago, and already the
little experiment of that day has developed into the
best-loved ambition of the young artist's life—to
make a name for himself as a maker of dainty
chalk studies of women and children, and con-
sidering the rare charm of his first exhibition, one
does not hesitate to predict an unqualified success.

Lewis Baumer is not only an Englishman by
birth, but wholly and entirely an Englishman in his
ideas and methods of work, and although the two

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men whose art most appeals to him are French,
Steinlen and Helleu, the fact that he takes
great pleasure in their work does not influ-
ence his own independent style. His first art
studies were pursued in the St. John's Wood's
School, and later he spent three years at the Royal
Academy. While still a student he began doing
pen-and-ink drawings for " Punch," and other
London weeklies, and because of his quick success

in this branch of art he quitted the schools and set
up a studio for his black-and-white work, which has
for many years been well-known in England and
abroad. Like most illustrators, Baumer had
longings for colour work, and he took to doing
colour illustrations for children's books, as well as
writing nonsense rhymes, a very popular "Jumble"
book being to his credit.

From his first ventures into the realms of colour
he learned the rare charm of delicate blending, and