DOI issue:
No. 162 (September, 1906)
DOI article:Studio-talk
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20715#0381
Studio-Talk
CAPE TOWN.—The pastel called The
Grey Mule, by Mr. G. S. Smithard,
which we reproduce in colour, is one
of several happy effects of colour
achieved by the artist and brought together by him
some little while ago for the purposes of exhibition
in the Baillie Galleries. Mr. Smithard, who has
earned a high reputation in South Africa as an
illustrator of periodicals, is a native of Derby.
There is a pleasant and courageous spontaneity
about his work which makes it as varied as it is
attractive in character.
NEW YORK.—Few men have painted
New York as faithfully as Charles
Austin Needham. For years he has
devoted himself to metropolitan park
and street scenes. They were a trifle prosaic, but
had the merit of being true to local colour. His
Mott Haven Canal was, perhaps, the most note-
worthy picture of this kind. He also painted land-
scapes in a semi-impressionistic manner, with a
preference for a dry
and rugged surface
texture. They were
simple, accurate, and
frequently poetical
versions of nature.
But neither street
scenes nor landscapes
brought him the
recognition he was
striving for, or, what
is more important,
convinced him that
he had arrived at the
most adequate and
personal fashion of
expressing himself.
sonal mode of feeling and thinking. He made rapid
progress. Technically his water-colours belong to
the best we produce. His style is unique in a way;
he paints with pure colours of one over the other,
while the paper is drenching wet. His touch is
wonderfully fluent, and the way in which his colours
blur and blend is as free as it is delicate.
Mr. Needham’s subjects are simplicity itself.
A few tree-trunks, a pool of water, a lonesome
figure, a vista behind shrubbery—all suggested
rather than actually represented—that is one of
his favourite themes. Sometimes the painter
attempts what the world calls more ambitious
pictures, as, for instance, a Christ walking on the
water, or an open boat hopelessly whirled about
like a nutshell on the giant wave of some tem-
pestuous ocean. But he is best in his simpler
work, where his style is delicate, subtle and veiled,
rather than ponderous and austere.
Needham tries to paint the soul of things, the
Some eight or ten
years ago he took to
water-colour; tenta-
tively at first, then
more and more
seriously, and lo! a
transformation took
place. The realist
changed into a mys-
ticist, the prosodist
into a poet. Need-
ham had found the
medium in which he
could express his per-
360
plates (See Munich Studio-Talk) designed by julius diez
CAPE TOWN.—The pastel called The
Grey Mule, by Mr. G. S. Smithard,
which we reproduce in colour, is one
of several happy effects of colour
achieved by the artist and brought together by him
some little while ago for the purposes of exhibition
in the Baillie Galleries. Mr. Smithard, who has
earned a high reputation in South Africa as an
illustrator of periodicals, is a native of Derby.
There is a pleasant and courageous spontaneity
about his work which makes it as varied as it is
attractive in character.
NEW YORK.—Few men have painted
New York as faithfully as Charles
Austin Needham. For years he has
devoted himself to metropolitan park
and street scenes. They were a trifle prosaic, but
had the merit of being true to local colour. His
Mott Haven Canal was, perhaps, the most note-
worthy picture of this kind. He also painted land-
scapes in a semi-impressionistic manner, with a
preference for a dry
and rugged surface
texture. They were
simple, accurate, and
frequently poetical
versions of nature.
But neither street
scenes nor landscapes
brought him the
recognition he was
striving for, or, what
is more important,
convinced him that
he had arrived at the
most adequate and
personal fashion of
expressing himself.
sonal mode of feeling and thinking. He made rapid
progress. Technically his water-colours belong to
the best we produce. His style is unique in a way;
he paints with pure colours of one over the other,
while the paper is drenching wet. His touch is
wonderfully fluent, and the way in which his colours
blur and blend is as free as it is delicate.
Mr. Needham’s subjects are simplicity itself.
A few tree-trunks, a pool of water, a lonesome
figure, a vista behind shrubbery—all suggested
rather than actually represented—that is one of
his favourite themes. Sometimes the painter
attempts what the world calls more ambitious
pictures, as, for instance, a Christ walking on the
water, or an open boat hopelessly whirled about
like a nutshell on the giant wave of some tem-
pestuous ocean. But he is best in his simpler
work, where his style is delicate, subtle and veiled,
rather than ponderous and austere.
Needham tries to paint the soul of things, the
Some eight or ten
years ago he took to
water-colour; tenta-
tively at first, then
more and more
seriously, and lo! a
transformation took
place. The realist
changed into a mys-
ticist, the prosodist
into a poet. Need-
ham had found the
medium in which he
could express his per-
360
plates (See Munich Studio-Talk) designed by julius diez